Sora no Seishin
by A River Witch
Summary: Since an accident, Tsuna started to see another world of spirits no one else could see. Believe it or not, that wasn't the biggest problem-the fact that he was constantly kicked out of his body was even more troublesome. Add in his disastrous luck, habit for attracting problems and lots of bored spirits, he got a screwed up childhood. (He couldn't have imagined it any other way.)
1. Prologue

**Sora no Seishin**

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**Prologue**

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**Full Summary: **Since a traffic accident when he was little, Tsuna started to see another world of spirits and monsters no one else seemed to be able to see. Believe it or not, that wasn't the biggest problem - the fact that he was constantly kicked out of his body was even more troublesome. Add in his disastrous luck, habit for attracting problems and lots of bored spirits that didn't wish Tsuna to have a normal life, he got a screwed up childhood. (Not that he could have imagined it any other way.)

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**Warnings: **AU, Spirit!Tsuna, Flame!Tsuna, Curious!Tsuna, Determined!Tsuna, Slightly-sarcastic!Tsuna, A-bit-snarky!Tsuna, Smart!Tsuna, Clever-for-his-age!Tsuna, Swearing!Tsuna, Japanese folklore, OCs for story progression and development, some of the Sky Guardians before Reborn, curses, violence, possession, loads of supernatural, Pre-Reborn (Reborn won't appear earlier than 15 chapter).

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**Heads Up:** Other worlds, spirits, yokai, ayakashi, mononoke, deities, gods and goddesses, Hollows, Shinigami, demons, witches, dragons, spells, auras, magic, elements, a new type of flames, FIRE, active volcanoes, rivers that have seen times before humans had been created, an elderly Sensei that makes Reborn look like a baby, a wolf god who is a relative of a certain canon character, and Nana who has a lot more to her than she lets people know. A Tsuna that grows up seeing and interacting with things people don't see and the consequences.

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi was never really a normal boy.

Before he was shot with the Dying Will Bullet which prevented any normalcy from entering Tsuna's life ever again, before that thrice damn devil of a home tutor impudently crossed the borders of his house, before being labeled 'Dame-Tsuna' in school just because he couldn't communicate with others that naturally, before being nicknamed 'Shizukana-Tsuna' for his quiet and unsocial behavior, way before being involved with the mafia, just before discovering his flames and even before the time his father visited the family with that old man, Timoteo, afterwards leaving to work who-knows-where (and as bad as Tsuna felt for it, he kind of figured that construction workers don't take photos with penguins which led to the questions Tsuna wasn't sure he wanted the answers for) with only an occasional postcard or a message of leaving to become a star, Tsuna had seen far more than any of his ancestors and mafia population together ever did.

Because Tsuna had shortly after his fourth birthday, on a normal winter day, discovered a world looking far more dangerous than the world of the Mafia - scarier than a world of power lust, of murder and of money, because, after all, that was what mafia was all about. It had been an accident - a coincidence. Though it coincided much too much unrelated things, in his opinion. Tsuna had wondered why it had to happen like that and what would have happened if he was just a second too late.

He would feel shivers and stop the thought right there and then.

Tsuna was pushed into a world as close to his yet as foreign and strange and screwed up and he'd never _ever_ trade it for a normal life of being ignorant to all it's wonders.

Tsuna had stumbled upon a world filled with spirits, monsters and souls - a world not made for the eyes of the living, even though humans did get to glimpse the smallest of what was going on in that world through myths and legends.

He felt that it should've been weird and all, but honestly he adapted and got used to walking on the knife's edge between spirits and humans. One could say that he grew up in both worlds simultaneously, both of them different from each other but the same. Both demanded loyalty to only one from Tsuna but he could never choose. Sometimes he envied humans who were ignorant to what he saw and sometimes he wished to leave for the spirit realm and never come back. Mostly, though, he was stubborn to live through anything life threw at him from both worlds.

Which wasn't always necessarily bad. But nor did it mean it was good either.

He'd met Le-jii-san, and Kazumi-chan, and Mori-san, and Sensei. He wasn't sure if he'd meet Kyou-nii, and Takeshi, and Ryohei-nii-san if he had been living his life any differently.

When he first encountered the mafia, Tsuna was surprised to notice how it wasn't even half as weird and strange as what he was used to. Honestly, the flames and murderous people who came after Tsuna for the sake of power/revenge/fun/grudges/etcetera sometimes made _sense_ which was a luxury in the sphere Tsuna grew up in.

Because unlike mafia symbolic flames that manifested one's resolve, Tsuna found that the flames of his were actually very much visible and burning.

Talk about overkill.

The first time he set foot in the other plane of existence, he didn't actually realize that he was not somewhere he was supposed to be until he bumped into a soul-eating monster that said, for some reason, that Tsuna was tasty. A four year old Tsuna did not fully understand what the gigantic inhuman creature with a skull mask meant by that but the boy had enough instinct and common sense to not ask any unnessecary questions that have tendency to cost one's life, turn away from the who-knows-what, and _run like hell_.

How he got there in the first place? Oh, Tsuna remembered every detail of that day very well even many years later despite being four years old and he does remember that it was most definitely _not _the best of experiences.

...Scratch that. It was the worst accident in his life. The bullies, the everyday problems he encountered while he grew up, the loneliness just because he was different than others, the humans overall, were barely as terrifying as what he went through then. He had developed a flinch at every sound or rustle for the following years which hadn't been entirely cured until he was ten.

When he was thrown into a...

Well, it's a bit too early for that, isn't it?

Tsuna supposed that he could tell the long story from the very beginning.

And this rather peculiar story started ten years ago, when at the age of four Tsuna had stepped, or, better said, was thrown into the Spirit World as both a living human and a spirit.

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**A/N**: Okay. So. Ahem. *clears throat*

...I really really _really_ loved Katekyo Hitman Reborn? It's, like, super awesome! I loved the anime (although it was really sad that it ended on the 203th episode, the manga's got so much more). *0* I just wanted to write a story like this and I'm actually looking forward to writing it. My first ever KHR story. Yay! And yes, that monster with a skull is what you think it is, but this story is not a crossover with Bleach or Noragami, it's just all, like, part of one universe. And yeah, there's gonna be a _lot_ more than just Hollows and creepy eyes. Yokai, yes, kitsune and neko stuff, ghosts, dragons, some non-canon flame stuff (no, I'm not sorry ^^) and really, should I be spoiling it?;3

...Although I might actually write a one-shot of Tsuna running into Ichigo. It might turn out to be fun to write :D

And fear not - I have not abandoned my other ROTG stories! I'm just writing and planning things so duh. Honestly though, please tell me if I should continue with this, because I do have the first chapter written ;) If I get, say, ten reviews, I'll post it :D And it's rather long! Hope that made you consider writing a review C: The more reviews, the longer the chapters! By the way, I'm aiming for 5k and more for each chapter ^^

Love, peace and cookies

River Melody

P.S. COOKIES TO EVERYBODY!*throws cookies everywhere*

P.P.S. And some ice cream, just for good measure ;D *hands some ice cream as well* Ice cream is cool! Woohoo :D


	2. Other World: Part One

**Sora no Seishin**

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**Other World: Part One**

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**Warnings: **AU, Spirit!Tsuna, Flame!Tsuna, Curious!Tsuna, Determined!Tsuna, Slightly-sarcastic!Tsuna, A-bit-snarky!Tsuna, Smart!Tsuna, Clever-for-his-age!Tsuna, Swearing!Tsuna, Japanese folklore, OCs for story progression and development, Sky Guardians before Reborn, curses, violence, possession, loads of supernatural, Pre-Reborn (Reborn won't appear earlier than 15 chapter).

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**Heads Up:** Other worlds, spirits, yokai, ayakashi, mononoke, deities, gods and goddesses, Hollows, Shinigami, demons, witches, dragons, spells, auras, magic, elements, a new type of flames, FIRE, active volcanoes, rivers that have seen times before humans had been created, an elderly Sensei that makes Reborn look like a baby, a wolf god who is a relative of a certain canon character, and Nana who has a lot more to her than she lets people know. A Tsuna that grows up seeing and interacting with things people don't see and the consequences.

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Inspired by '**You**', Gareth Emery (Nightcore version)

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Tsuna was four and that was when it had all started.

It was scary, terrifying and soul-scarring.

It was dangerous, screwed up and Tsuna could have died.

It was an experience Tsuna would never wish anyone to go through.

...And it could have turned out to be _much_ worse.

* * *

It had been a rather pleasant sunny day, even if it was a bit too warm for the 23rd of December, and Tsuna never got to know who he had pissed off in his past or future reincarnation to deserve the following nightmare.

It was, in some twisted sort of way, kind of mildly disappointing because there wasn't the cliché life flashing in his eyes, which might have been because this was real life or because Tsuna's life up until then was rather uneventful (even though he was particularly shy and clumsy at everything, but at the time it was regarded as very cute), no praying to God, because Tsuna didn't have time to think about it when all he could think about was his mother who was in danger, and no light in the end of the tunnel because the tunnel led to a rather dark and scary place instead.

One minute he was clinging to his mother as they crossed the street on a rightful green on their way to visit one of kaa-san's friends, and the other, when he spared a glance behind him, he was watching in frozen terror as a clearly expensive black car with dark toned windows whirred on the red, slamming right into an innocent truck as the grinding collision propelled both vehicles across the intersection, right at the street cross where he and his mother were walking. He stared as the truck's long white side with "we will make your life better with our first-class silverware" written on it in red - even after a long time, Tsuna wouldn't understand why in the world he had had time to read this ironic message as this truck, quite obviously, didn't make anything better in Tsuna's life - sped towards them with that shocking loud honk, parts and pieces of metal flying in every direction with ear-damaging clanging sounds and clattering against the pavement. He could remember in detail how he couldn't move a muscle, the feeling of absolute helplessness as the truck moved seeming in slow motion, the driver's panicked eyes reflecting in the glass clear as day. Heck, he couldn't even open his mouth and _scream_ or at least tell mom to run-

That's when something in Tsuna snapped. His mother was in danger.

Mom.

_Kaa-san!_

The change gave a fleeting chance for the scrawny child to muster up a strength he didn't know he possessed - enough to unfreeze, move, and shove his mother out of the truck's way. The force of his own push made him momentarily go flying, knocking his mother even further onto the safe ground and while in the air, he could see her expressions changing, as she looked down at him in surprise, then with puzzlement, then slowly - _too slowly!_ - started registering the unnaturally loud screech of tires, looked up at the noise of the oncoming vehicle and the dawning indescribable _horror_ that Tsuna never _ever_ wanted to see on his mother's face.

The truck was mere meters away and Tsuna could almost see the whole scene from another perspective - a woman falling back onto the sidewalk as her grocery bags fell out of her grasp and vegetable scattered across the road, watching wide-eyed the half-broken truck coming her way, a brown-haired child airborne, tiny arms pushing the woman away from the path of destruction, determination burning in the boy's eyes, and the moment in which the child, after seeing that his mother was out of the way but the truck's right corner was about to collide with his abdomen, realized that he wasn't going to make it.

_...I'm not? But then kaa-san would all alone. I can't leave her alone - tou-san doesn't come so often and she'll be lonely!_

_Why did it have to happen now?_

_I'm sorry, kaa-san. _

And then the world came crashing back at Tsuna, a ringing sound filling his ears and that was the last he remembered before he felt numbing pain in the side of his head and, for the first time in the little boy's life, the world had _changed._

...

When Tsuna came to his senses, the first thing he noticed was that the world felt in some sort of way, well, _off_.

...Although, no. Not off. Maybe on the contrary - it felt _on_. The one who felt off was he himself.

The four-year-old brushed that off, not paying attention to some sort of weight behind him and stood up shakily, looking around.

Upon discovering that he felt really dizzy, that the truck was nowhere in sight, that itwas creepily quiet, that the streets were empty, that it was already night and that his mom was nowhere to be seen, he did the only sensible thing a four-year-old boy like him would do.

Tsuna flopped back onto the dusty pavement, took a deep breath and started screaming his head off.

Unfortunately for the young boy, it didn't help him in any way - it was more the opposite, although he didn't know then. His cries had almost cost him his life, as he got the attention of the whole neighborhood of... Well, neighbors.

The wrong, unfriendly type of neighbors.

About ten minutes after that, a hiccuping Tsuna with tears streaming down his face was shuffling down the street, tripping from time to time (read: all the time) back in the direction of his house, where he thought and was hoping his mother had gone back to without him.

(When you tell a four-year-old that you might leave him or her, children _do_ tend to take it to heart.)

Trying not to look into the shady corners and shadows lurking through the darkness around him, he tried to ignore the prickling coldness running up and down his spine as he felt eyes watching him, as if trying to burn holes in his very being.

Watching him were many eyes indeed. Some beings were only eyes. Some had _much_ more than eyes. All of them were watching.

While he ran, he watched with a frightened expression the ludicrous sight of people the size of a pencil stride past him, muttering among themselves. A couple of strangely shadowed women in yukatas crossed the weirdly empty road even for two in the night. At Tsuna's stare they both turned to look at him and the brunette stopped in his tracks, seeing shark-like smiles stretch on their faces, eyes glinting in an ominous way.

"Oh, so he sees us?"

"My my, he smells so good!"

"You get the right half, I get the left one."

"Ha, no. That's the one with the tasty heart!"

"Bah, so? I saw him first so he's **_mine_**."

They both lunged and Tsuna let out a whimper, stumbling back and breaking into a sprint. He rounded the corner, getting away as far as he could from those monster-ladies who thought he was food - the mere concept of that had been rather baffling for a four-year-old Tsuna, though not for long because he caught up on the vital part of the 'don't get eaten' necessary to survive very quickly - when he felt something in him telling to look up.

That's precisely when Tsuna ran into that hollow-eyed monster with the strange skull-shaped mask on it's face. It was holding a man in broken glasses and talking to him. At least, before Tsuna drew the attention to himself. The poor man was watching Tsuna with a fearful look which the small Sawada missed.

No, Tsuna was looking at the monster. Silently. If it weren't for the still wet streaks running down from the child's eyes and occasional sniffs, one might've thought that those big golden brown eyes contained more curiousity than anything. The creature looked down at him and then gave an odd, resonating chuckle that Tsuna knew for sure he did _not_ like.

**"It seems I'm in great luck today. Such a tasty soul you have there, fire brat!" **it laughed, giving Tsuna the mental shivers. Although somehow, he didn't feel like crying anymore.

Something was telling him that crying won't help him anymore.

**"And look at that - you don't even know about your fire yet. I've heard eating it will give you a power of a thousand Shinigami... I must have it!"**

Tsuna stared at the creature puzzled but the following action caused him to recoil, his eyes instantly drained of any curiosity and instead filled with shocking stark fear. The- the _monster_ laughed, opened it's ugly mouth and _threw the man it was holding in_.

The screams of the perished soul still haunts Tsuna in his nightmares.

Gulping, Tsuna did what his instincts told him, which was to start running (now, already, right now, at this very moment, this instant, why am I so slow, come on, _move _feet!) before this horrible creature fully focused it's attention on him and did the same to him.

Speeding and tripping along the walls, unconsciously sticking to the light from the dimness of the street lamps, Tsuna didn't notice a shadow in black flash through the night darkness neither did he see the glint of a katana in the uneven light of the moon. However, the blood-freezing scream from the creature as it was slain only whipped the child to run faster.

Tsuna did not yet know at the time of people who call themselves 'Shinigami' and of their whereabouts in the World of the Living.

...

Once being in the relative safety around the corner, Tsuna settled under a street lamp, the rather dull light falling on the boy. His heart was still speeding and not planning on slowing down, the images of the man with glasses and a broken chain stuck out of his chest disappearing into that black hole of a mouth and the splattering black blood as the monster was killed flashing in front of the little boy's big eyes. He shuddered and shook his head, chasing away the dark thoughts.

Tsuna pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them tightly, trying to focus on anything else but the fresh memories that would surely engrave themselves for a long time. He strained to hear any danger and wiped away the freshly fallen tears from his face. Oddly enough, his hearing seemed a lot better than before. He could hear the slightest drips of water and screech of opening and closing doors in the distance. A _long_ distance. He could say with one hundred percent guarantee that there weren't any pursues.

_Yet_.

He dismissed this revelation as he looked down, at the wet pavement he was sitting on.

His gaze fell on a long semi-transparent tail trailing from behind him.

"...huh?" Tsuna questioned with a small part of a screech present in his exclamation. Somehow, in all sincerity, he couldn't feel even mildly shocked by the fact that as he touched the tail it felt very much real to his fingers.

Tsuna was more puzzled that the tail reminded him of a lion's tail that he saw on pictures. It had that little tuft on the end. It was even in a similar tint, although a bit more... _vibrant_. Tsuna had read the word in a book and the tail really reminded him of it - it seemed pulsing, as if it was _alive_. It was kind of... comforting. Reassuring. He held it up with one hand and felt something behind him strain. He tugged at the tail a bit more and yelped more in surprise than pain as he fell to the ground.

"It's _mine_?" he exclaimed as he touched the place where the tail connected to him in the tail bone. Breathing in and out, Tsuna let go of the tail to see if it was really attached to him and was a bit exasperated when it followed him as he stood up. Turning to face the brick wall, the boy gently smacked his forehead on it. Because this was exactly what had to happen with him, huh? He sighed.

Later, after discovering what this strange tail really was, Tsuna thanked all gods and spirits that he still had the tail. If it wasn't there...

Then Tsuna wouldn't have been there either.

Then suddenly, _too_ suddenly, Tsuna sensed something in the air shift and he was looking up, staring at a cloud of black flapping past the rooftops chasing after something. Squinting his eyes, which for some reason had much better sight than usual, the Sawada realized that the cloud was a mass of millions little black creatures with tails and horns. They emitted such a stink and noise that Tsuna had to cover his nose in disgust.

And now that Tsuna had noticed them, they seemed to notice him _back_.

Tsuna had, once again in that frightening day, started running.

...

Luckily for Tsuna, who had resorted to chanting the sincerest prayers in the universe to anyone who cared to listen to him, the screeching and squeaking herd of little demons had found a more appealing prey and headed in another direction.

The boy's over-sensitive ears picked up a wail of someone being glomped and champed down. Tsuna shivered, eyes un-blinking and wanting nothing more to just make this all end.

The child stumbled from around the corner, eyes frantic to find any source of familiarity and warmth. He trudged slowly along the houses, until he almost fell into a puddle and saw the reflection in it, lighted by the yellow of the lamps.

Tsuna's hands shot up to his head and felt in the mess of brown hair something that was not supposed to be there.

(But then again, he reasoned later, nothing оf this was supposed to happen.)

As the ripples in the muddy water stilled, the reflection showed a pair non-human ears sticking from Tsuna brown mess of hair. They were in the same tone as the tail - half-transparent and a mix of yellow and light orange. And they were, indeed, a pair of lion ears. Tsuna's hands brushed through his hair down and what shocked him was that his _own_ ears had disappeared. And he was stuck with this pair.

"I wonder why I don't feel that surprised at this..." the boy sighed, his voice dripping with something that wasn't childishness. In fact, as the boy stood up and looked at the night sky in search of any sign that this was all a dream, the expression Tsuna wore was serious and calm and...

"I'm not scared." the boy told the skies. "I'm _not_!"

Laced with darkness, heavens answered him with a drip of water. Then another. And another three. And another ten.

Soon enough, the street was soaking in rain.

Tsuna was looking up at the moon as he lifted a hand in front of the glowing disk. His breath hitched and golden brown eyes widened, all light flying right out of them leaving only a scared dimmed brown.

His hand was becoming just a bit transparent.

Yes, he wasn't scared.

He was _terrified_.

But that didn't mean that Kami had to know, right?

"I told you, I'm not! I'm not scared and I'm_ not dead!_" he yelled (read: stuttered) at the sky.

Contrary to popular belief, Tsuna was never an ignorant child nor was he unable to connect the dots when it was obvious. Because unlike some people, he was much more open-minded to other possibilities than just those proved by science. He was very much aware that when he pushed Nana from the road, he passed out. The question was - had he passed out from shock or from a collision? He knew that if he was hit by the truck that he would have very slim to none chances of surviving. He saw it on TV and autocatsastorophes usually ended in tears, ambulances and lots of policemen. He could certainly say that there wasn't any blood at the place where the accident occurred but he could say just as certainly that things like this don't _happen_ to normal_ living _people. Creatures from spirit tales were supposed to only exist in spirit tales. Even if the real deal was a hundred times scarier than the pictures in books about heroes. Regardless, Tsuna knew for sure that he was alive - because he could feel his heart beat rapidly in his small ribcage. He put his right hand on his chest and closed his eyes, feeling the slowly calming pulse. Just as slowly, Tsuna felt himself relax.

He didn't notice the little flicker of an orange flame run through his hair, disappearing into him as a pang of what could almost be called courage.

Opening his eyes, he looked down from the moon and into a dark alleyway to his right. The boy looked to his right and then to his left, took a step towards the alley, still keeping to the light, and stuck his tongue out at the hundreds of eyes glaring back. They all simultaneously blinked in surprise, and while recovering from the sudden rudeness of this foreign-to-this-land boy, Tsuna puffed up, gathered some of the scraps of strength he still had and, quite accurately assuming that the only safe place in this world was his home, stomped towards it where kaa-san was surely waiting to forgive him for his hard shove. Because of course she left him all alone and went home because she was angry at Tsuna for pushing her, right?

Tsuna wished that that was the case.

...

It wasn't.

When Tsuna had arrived at home, the lights in the house were turned off and there weren't any sounds indicating Nana's presence. Tsuna wondered what was up with that because his mother sometimes stayed up until two in the morning watching late TV programs and doing who-knows-what grown ups do, like read a book or something, and it dawned him that it must be even later than that. Nevertheless, not being one to easily give up after going through all this insanity, Tsuna marched up to the fence and clumsily climbed over it, paying no attention to the fact that he had never been able to do this before. He walked up to the door, knocked on it as loudly as he could and cried through a closed window that he was home, that he was sorry for pushing and for coming home so late, and that he wants to go home now because it's raining.

...No one answered him. The lights did not turn on, no footsteps were heard and the door remained where it was.

"Kaa-san must be sleeping." Tsuna muttered to himself.

Even though Tsuna could draw conclusions and think, he was still a naïve little boy with little experience and sense of normalcy to say that there were many holes in logic of this whole incident. Like the fact that in this whole situation, Nana's least worries would be her son pushing her barely strong enough to rival a cat's rub.

Because he was a little heart-broken and he was hoping (not deep down but very evidently) that his mother would be there to greet him and that he'd apologize and that she would forgive him and that they would drink hot chocolate together. And maybe Tsuna would even get to sleep with his mother because he'd been really really scared today and might have nightmares again.

Thinking all this he felt something hot fall down his cheeks. He slowly lifted a hand to wipe the raindrops away only to realize that he was crying again. After a couple of seconds, the poker face he was trying so hard to keep on broke down, everything that happened that terrifying night rushed back and soon Tsuna was reduced to a little ball of crying and sobbing half-lion cub, half-human child curled on the doorstep.

The nightmare didn't seem to end.

...

"Tsu-kun?"

"Tuna-fish!"

It can't be... Is it them? _Both_ of them?

Tsuna's eyes fluttered open and he felt his heart skip a beat too, because when he lifted his head to answer those oh-so-familiar voices he saw the faces of his mother and father standing just behind the fence that marked the Sawada's property.

Tsuna's eyes widened as he felt his face split into a smile and something like happy tears well up in his eyes. He rubbed them with a hand, not wanting to look like a complete cry-baby in front of his father but now that he thought of it, it did seem just a tiny bit strange to him.

Despite the way Tsuna's scared self lightened at the sight of his parents, commanding his body to spring up and start tripping off the ledge, Tsuna soon found himself slowing down, just halfway to the two standing beyond the wall. Questions that shouldn't have crossed his four year old mind started welling up, questions like 'When did tou-san come back?' and 'How come kaa-san looks so hungry?' and 'Where had they both been?' and 'Why aren't they asking about what happened back at the street?' and 'Don't they have the keys to come in?' and 'Why do I feel like I don't recognize them...?' and suddenly Tsuna stopped a few steps away from the firmly closed gate he had no problem climbing over earlier.

"Tsu-kun!" His mother's face smiled upon him but Tsuna furrowed his brows, feeling very strange as if something was... amiss. As if looking down at him through his mother's façade was a complete stranger to Tsuna.

"Tuna-fish? What is it? Something wrong?" tou-san was asking him and here the little boy thought that _he_ was the one who was supposed to ask that.

Tsuna raised a finger skeptically and said in his best intimidating tone what came to his mind first, something that really _did_ want to tell his father, "Where h-have you been o-otou-san? Kaa-san has been s-so worried about you! She really missed you!" Iemitsu started frowning at this. Tsuna was starting to get angrier, the stutter stopping as well. "Tou-san, _I_ really missed you! Why did you go away without saying good-bye?"

"Now now, Tsu-kun, it's not tou-san's fault. We have it all sorted out, right darling?" Nana was looking slyly at Tsuna's father. "Now please come here and give us a hug! We missed you so much Tsu-chan. Just come here sweetie, open the gate and..."

But Tsuna was already backing away. Just a moment ago, an expression crossed his mother's face - one he had never seen before. It flickered for a second but the boy had enough time to see the pure hunger and lust in those dark brown eyes that were supposed to be kaa-san's.

This was not his mother.

"Y-you're not kaa-san. You're not! Tou-san get away from it! It's pretending to be kaa-san and it's not! Please make it go away tou-san! Tou-san?!" Tsuna was near hysterical when he saw an equal look of emptiness and hunger settling itself on his father's face.

...They were _not_ his parents.

Tsuna was staggering back, muttering something incoherent and terrified as he watched the beings that pretended to be his kaa-san and tou-san start morphing into some sorts of dark creatures with the faces of his parents twisted into an inhuman expression of fury and greed. He watched as they seethed in rage - their prey had slipped from them by refusing to leave the Sawada territory. He watched as they tried to crawl over the fence and failed, as they were rejected by something- something that looked like a shield. Each time they banged against it, an explosion threw them away from the house's proud walls.

The little boy sobbed at the sight that would make grown men with steel nerves at least horrified and closed his eyes and ears, the ears that still picked up the disgusting sounds because of their sensitivity and this was so- so-...!

After a very long while, the two creatures nearly evaporated from the burns they received each time they attempted to cross the line between the Sawada's house and the rest of the world, and as they spat some horrible, in Tsuna's gentle ears opinion, curses, both of the shadows reluctantly receded into the darkness.

Tsuna watched with dimmed eyes, curling back under the door to his home.

Oddly enough, he found comfort in that feeling that had told him that crying was going to be useless - the one that had convinced him that home was the only safe place and that those beasts were not his father and mother.

Lulled by the utter exhaustion that washed over him, by the sad thoughts that pursued him and the quiet drip of the ending rain, he dreamed of a better tomorrow, hoping that this nightmare will, at some point, end.

He didn't see the small, barely visible flames flare around him in a protective circle, daring anyone to come close to their master.

...

_Warm_.

Tsuna felt warm.

_...It feels so_ good.

The boy blinked his eyes open. Upon waking up, the four-year-old found himself bed, staring at a white ceiling. On further notice, he looked to his left and shot up from the bed, although falling right back as a wave of nausea hit him.

Sitting in a plastic chair, his mother was dozing off with a very discontent expression on her face.

His _mother_.

His _real_ mother.

_Kaa-san._

"..."

"Tsu-kun...?"

"Kaa-san?"

Tsuna locked eyes with his mother and they watched each other for a long, long time.

Somehow, his mother seemed to have a strange look on her and even though Tsuna knew this was his real mother and not one of those... creatures, he felt as if he'd glimpsed something kaa-san's eyes that shouldn't have been present with her rather carefree attitude.

The boy's eyes comically widened as he looked frantically around himself and clutched his head, fingers trying to find something they did not expect to find yesterday.

...He didn't have any tail. He had his own ears. _Human_ ears.

"It was all a dream...?" Tsuna murmured looking at the window, eyes lost as they filled with memories of last night. "B-but... Why am I here? I was at home and there were-"

Just like that, he was tackled into a fierce bear-hug. The boy looked back from the window and saw his mom hugging him as if she was afraid that once she let go, Tsuna would for some reason disappear. He heard her mumble something, saying 'Tsu-kun' repeatedly. The boy's previously surprised brown eyes melted to their usual honey brown as he hesitantly but gratefully hugged back.

When both of them sat in comfortable silence for another while, none of the two mentioned the salty wetness both had dripping down their shirts and the occasional sniffles and sobs that didn't come only from the boy.

"K-kaa-san?" Tsuna spoke up after a while earning a barely audible noise from his mother. "I-I'm sorry kaa-san, I-I r-really didn't want to push you l-like that, I s-swear! I just s-saw the tr-truck and I panicked and I just thought that-"

"You saved my life, Tsu-kun." the quiet reply stopped his rants. Tsuna's eyes widened even more drastically, blinking up at Nana in surprise. Tsuna had expected her to accept his apology and now she was saying this...

"But I really am sorry, kaa-san! You always told me never to push anybody, especially those I care for..." Tsuna trailed off as he looked away.

"Oh Tsu-kun..." he heard a sigh. "I'm the one who should say sorry. Tsu-kun, I am sorry! I should've payed more attention, I am okaa-san after all!" she looked up at him. "...I should never have allowed this to happen to you. Tsu-kun..."

He would only later come to remember this and realize that his mother had been talking about something more than just the truck.

Tsuna found himself, for the countless time, wiping away streaming tears. "...Kaa-san? I- I... I had this w-weird dream! I woke up a-at that place where i-it all happened and there were these e-eyes and a m-monster! A-and I h-had a tail and there were those bad people - th-they tried to look like you and t-tou-san!"

On her part Nana was mildly horrified.

Although if Tsuna payed more attention, he'd see through the fake expression of shock a dark shadow flit through his mother's chocolate brown eyes.

"Oh Tsu-kun... It must have been such a shock for you to have such a... nightmare." she hugged him tightly, stroking his hair gently. She whispered some sweet words into her little angel's ear.

But Tsuna didn't react. Instead, he paled. He started fidgeting and pointed a shaking finger at something behind his mother.

Under the the other plastic chair, a strange little creature hovered in the air, a transparent purple with one eye.

Tsuna forgot how to breath as he pointed at it and started to get (rightfully) hysteric. Nana looked at where he was pointing worriedly but that was soon changed to confusion. "Tsu-kun? What's there?"

"...?"

"I didn't quite hear that Tsu-kun...?"

"Y-you don't _see_ it?"

"What, Tsu-kun? What... what should I see?"

_So it's all true? The nightmare was actually what happened?! So the monsters are-_

Tsuna backed away, straining out of Nana's grasp and after another jerk, the woman was unable to hold him and the boy stumbled out of the bed onto the floor with a loud crash, only his legs seen sticking out in different directions.

Nana sprinted as fast as she could to see her son as an awkward heap on the floor.

...Sleeping.

She sighed but a small smile tugged her lips as she lifted the frail body of her little boy back onto the bed and under the blanket. She walked back to her chair, scooting it closer to the bed and sitting down. Relief was seen in her whole being.

"Oh Tsu-kun... I was _so_ afraid that you might not wake up." she said softly. "You haven't woken up for eighteen hours and the doctors were all just so pessimistic... But I- I-" she covered her face, wiping away the tears as she gazed at her son's sleeping form. "I'm so sorry Tsu-kun. When you pushed me, the collision was so strong... Between you and the wall. You got me off the street when you could've just ran yourself. The truck didn't hit you head on and it was at a lucky angle in which it caused minimal damage compared to what it could have. But the collision was still so strong that it threw you at the wall of the building and the cuts you got was from that, not from the truck."

From another reality, still on the floor, Tsuna blinked at Nana disbelievingly. He blinked at his own body lying on the bed disbelievingly. He blinked at the transparent tail curled up innocently beside him disbelievingly.

A yell pierced the hospital, heard only by the flock of breeze sprites passing by and the little purple creature that opened it's one eye, grumbled and floated away out of the window.

...

That day when Tsuna fell out of his body for the second time after being thrown out the first time he had discovered, very unhappily, that he couldn't interact with normal humans in such a state. When he'd tried to touch his mother, to tell her that he was there and ask what in the world was going on, he had only achieved in making her glance in his general direction. He assumed that she didn't actually _see_ or _hear_ him and dismissed the light feeling for a stray draft, so she stood up and went to close the window.

...Walking right through Tsuna.

And there went the chance of a good day.

In his panic of being just walked through, Tsuna hadn't noticed the way Nana bit her lip and looked downwards, swallowing a guilty lump in her throat.

_I'm so sorry Tsuna._

* * *

**A/N**: So. Cough. Ahem. Yeah.

...Hey people!

This five thousand plus word chapter is all for you:3 I hope it made sense because I was having fun writing this and might not have paid enough attention to the overall sanity... But who cares for sanity? C: Anyways, do care to tell me if it's any good. I really hope so... Please review? Honestly, just spend two seconds on typing 'good' or 'bad'. That's all I need, although those bigger reviews are pure gold :D If you've got any ideas, corrections, advices, indications, suggestions and/or knowledge on spirits and stuff, please review or PM me! I'm open to each and every one;)

So anyway, I'm planning for this to be the biggest story I have so far and it's kinda scary, even though I have a plot planned and waiting to be written. Oh the joy of actually having even a faint idea of what is going to happen. Usually, I write one chapter and then come to realize that I have no idea where it's going... D: But this time it's different! To be honest, I've already written two chapters but those are far into the next chapters. I'm only starting to write the second chapter so yeah. Keeping in mind that I want to have fun writing this, to have _you_ having fun reading this and keeping the 5k plus rule, it's gonna take a while. Oh yes, this story's chapters _will_ be big, I made a promise with myself. Ah, well, it's mostly because I have quite a lot I'd like to write and include in this story and enjoy reading it myself. Plus, school year had started for me as well as piano. And trying to juggle it all, writing comes as a big relief, though I only get an hour and a half of actual peace with my iPad to write this stuff.

...Nah, I'm not complaining :P

Love, peace and cookies

River Melody

P.S. Cookies? Cookies?! COOKIES?! *gives everyone cookies* They're fresh, I made sure of that:D And they're with chocolate chips^^

P.P.S. Could I see the reviews hitting 'thirty five' for another chapter? ;3 I know I'm asking for a lot, but please? Pretty pretty please? With a cherry on top? *Puss-in-Boots eyes*


	3. Other World: Part Two

**Sora no Seishin**

* * *

**Other World: ****Part Two**

* * *

**Warnings: **AU, Spirit!Tsuna, Flame!Tsuna, Curious!Tsuna, Determined!Tsuna, Slightly-sarcastic!Tsuna, A-bit-snarky!Tsuna, Smart!Tsuna, Clever-for-his-age!Tsuna, Swearing!Tsuna, Japanese folklore, OCs for story progression and development, Sky Guardians before Reborn, curses, violence, possession, loads of supernatural, Pre-Reborn (Reborn won't appear earlier than 15 chapter).

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**Heads Up:** Other worlds, spirits, yokai, ayakashi, mononoke, deities, gods and goddesses, Hollows, Shinigami, demons, witches, dragons, spells, auras, magic, elements, a new type of flames, FIRE, active volcanoes, rivers that have seen times before humans had been created, an elderly Sensei that makes Reborn look like a baby, a wolf god who is a relative of a certain canon character, and Nana who has a lot more to her than she lets people know. A Tsuna that grows up seeing and interacting with things people don't see and the consequences.

* * *

Inspired by '**You'll Find Yourself**' by John O'Callaghan (Nightcore version)

* * *

The following days could be, without exaggeration, called 'hell' for Tsuna.

If one were to think that the second time he fell out of his body just resolved itself like that some way, he'd be mistaken because apart from the fact that the child was facing the aftermath of shock, trauma, and an experience no one was going to help him with, he was also left by himself in a place full of people that couldn't see nor hear him. The scrawny boy almost had a full-blown breakdown when he watched his mother standing next to the window with an ignorant albeit slightly frowned expression. His vision became blurred and something hot had started running down his face and unable to contain himself, he cried loudly and ran out of the room, his tail flickering in an upset manner.

When he turned his back on his kaa-san, Nana had glanced behind her and hesitantly looked away, squeezing her eyes shut. After a couple of seconds she opened them and looked out of the window at the clear blue sky and twirled one of her fingers around her eye, afterwards slightly pointing it in the direction the boy had left. A breeze wove it's way into the room, ruffling the woman's hair softly and slipped into the corridor just before the door slammed behind Tsuna.

The brunette had wandered aimlessly around the hospital and ended up huddling in one of the corners of the first floor, ears lowered and tail curled around his legs as quiet whimpers escaped his mouth. He watched with tear-filled eyes the nurses rushing back and forth, and patients walking to the cafeteria. He also watched the monsters walk or slide or hover among the people nonchalantly. Some threw glances at where Tsuna was, sniffing in suspicion, but the boy huddled further into the wall and behind the fake pot tree so he didn't get seen. It had worked and the creatures didn't give him a second thought though the four year old still lowered his head in sadness. Who knew a morning could turn out so horrible?

Despite the sunlight shining through the windows and the rather cheerful chatter of the passing patients, Tsuna felt as miserable as a homeless kicked kitten. He bit his trembling lip and wondered what in the world was he going to do now.

Even his usually positive side that had supported him this far had agreed that this all just sucked.

A while later, the boy had found the strength to stand up and walk back in the direction of the room where he... where his body was. On the way, he got lost several times because in his haste to flee, he didn't exactly memorize the location of the room. Several patients witnessed the door to their wards spontaneously open, as if someone had shyly peeked in, and shut by themselves, even though their windows were closed.

It took Tsuna more than one try to find his room and he was relieved to open the fourth door and see his mother's back.

The four-year-old walked uncertainly to the bed, averting his eyes from the occupant. He spent some time searching for the courage to face the hard reality he just couldn't seem to grasp a hold on and finally, he breathed in and out and looked up sharply.

...He really looked weak, did he?

It was the only coherent thought that made it's way through Tsuna's head after he came to his senses, having, apparently, fallen to the floor and almost passed out from the paradoxic sight.

It indeed was.

In the small mirror placed next to the small table beside the bed, a scene reflected for just a moment in a glint of sunshine - a fragile boy with messy brown hair was sleeping under the blanket. Half-standing, half-sitting on the floor right next, the very same boy with a pair of translucent lion ears and a tail was clutching his stomach in an attempt to prevent himself from throwing up from the lightheadedness caused by shock.

For heaven's sake, he was a four year old child who should've just fainted from all this hellish nightmare! Why did it have to happen to him? Why was everything so- so _complicated_? He just wanted a normal and peaceful life with kaa-san even if tou-san wasn't there!

(Even if he thought it was sad tou-san wasn't home, he didn't think his dad was a very good person. He certainly didn't behave like one with his love of drinking some sort of bad-smelling stuff and very bad words he used. Tsuna only learned the meaning of alcohol when he was five. And aside from that issue - in which Tsuna hope he was mistaken and just didn't know his father that well - he _did_ see children his age watching him and his mother walk past them with a longing look. The four year old, even if he was only a four year old, knew that some kids had mean parents or just didn't _have_ parents. The concept itself that some children didn't live in a home and didn't have parents at all was a horrifying fact itself that the child couldn't quite imagine, so he knew better than to be envious of other children and their fathers - besides, kaa-san was so kind and he loved her so much that the brunette felt awful for wishing for someone more.)

Tsuna sobbed and buried his face in the soft blanket covering his body, although lightened up by the thought of his mother, who even though didn't see him, was still in the same room as him which granted a lot of comfort.

He felt regardless of the fact, that what happened last night was to him alone, that kaa-san was still there for him, even if next to his body.

Soon enough when he was on the verge of drifting off, he felt himself being pulled somewhere but he didn't resist because what was happening felt _right_ for change.

Later, he woke up to find himself once again in his rightful body and settled for taking his mother's hand and not letting go of for the rest of the day. Nana was only happy to be of any reassurance to her son and so, Tsuna had decided to leave the matter of asking kaa-san about the other world and his place in it for another time, partly because he was mildly eased but mostly because he simply couldn't express himself properly.

Sometimes, he hated being a four year old with it's communication disadvantages.

...

It all continued the next week when he was checked out of the hospital. Everything was supposed to be fine and had looked so for the doctors who assured his mother that he was steadily recovering and would be running around like new in a couple of months if only Tsuna would need some time of rest at home for his ribs to heal.

It didn't look so cheerful from Tsuna's perspective.

The thing was, after that fateful accident Tsuna had started to daily (and nightly) see everything in both the normal world he was used to, and the other, scary and thoroughly unwelcoming, world of spirit kind. Those belonging with the other world were sometimes (but sometimes not) dimmer compared to the people Tsuna lived among, unlike when he found himself with his tail and ears, and in company of invisible beings.

Honestly, they were _everywhere_. Small creatures, big creatures, humongous creatures, microscopic creatures. They were of all sizes, forms, colors and any other criteria. Some sent shivers down the boy's spine, some could be called mysterious, some could be mistaken for cute (Tsuna had seen the fangs of that little fluff-ball once, when he saw it sitting on a tree when walking past it - the following nightmares had painted them with blood and howls of small animals being eaten alive), but mostly they were scary.

Very scary.

And if most of the monsters were, well, monster-looking, some were not. The child constantly mistook spirits for people. Some spirits looked so alike to human beings that Tsuna just assumed they were and was painfully thrust into the reality when people would ask in an annoyed tone about why in the world was he talking to himself or staring at an empty space. The brunette would stare at the person and then at the spirit, who had either a mocking or, much more rarely, a sympathetic look, and proceeded to burst into tears and run away/bury himself in his mother.

(Though he was endlessly grateful to his mother - she never seemed to question his stares at seemingly empty places or when he talked to no one. She just smiled and chuckled, hugging her son, and Tsuna would feel a lot better even if other mean people would tell Nana that she was spoiling him.

Somehow, those people never seemed to show up in front of Tsuna ever again. The boy had wondered why.)

And that was only one of the many problems in Tsuna's life that he had no idea of how to deal with.

Foremost, the first day at home after being in the hospital, he found out that he, repeatedly and without any wish for it, fell out of his body.

In the hospital, the time he first time saw his own body from another perspective like that, it had come as a strong shock - and despite being a spirit, he felt every emotion as strongly as when he was in his body.

(Later, he contemplated on whether it was because he was still technically alive or because emotions can etch themselves so deeply into one's spirit that they stay with a person even after he goes into another reality.)

Despite already having seen the sight of his own body that time, he still squeaked when he saw it again.

It was the biggest problem which led to many seemingly unrelated difficulties and chain-reactions, like the fact that to other people it seemed as though Tsuna could and would without warning or symptom just fall asleep at random times and places. A couple of times grown ups actually called for an ambulance and Tsuna felt immensely embarrassed when he'd come back around to see a worried face of a doctor asking what was wrong and the boy couldn't really say anything because when he tried thinking up of any rational way of explaining things, he came to a dead lock as it seemed so senseless even he himself realized it. He either had to explain with spirits as a given or he didn't know what to say otherwise - he knew he was astonishingly bad at lying and he didn't want to go to the house for mental people yet.

His kaa-san had, after being given an advice from one of her friends, went for consultation and the diagnose was an illness of excessively falling asleep at daytime - narcolepsy. The doctor had, after being told of the truck accident, said that it was 87% possible that such an illness could have been an aftermath of it. And mixed with the fact that Tsuna was four years old and still recovering from a not only physical but mental trauma - naïve doctor, Tsuna had thought, saying that the truck accident itself was scarier than what had happened _after_ - it was possible for the illness to be a mix of stress, trauma and being four year old with it's need to take naps, even though at much more random and unusual times than supposed too.

It was troublesome because Tsuna knew that his brain and neur-thingies (or something) were absolutely fine. The one who was not was he himself. Tsuna, a while later, when he wiggled the exact spelling of the word from his mother, made it his responsibility to find out exactly what narcolepsy was and after finding it in a few books, concluded that it didn't involve one's spirit wandering around.

It also didn't involve said spirit being kicked out of it's own body just when Tsuna started to fall asleep. It was a concept that he didn't understand - when every night he went to sleep, almost every time he found himself or rather his spirit, as he had come to name himself in this state, flicked out on the floor just as he was about to drift off. The child didn't know what caused such a phenomena but at first he thought it was a disaster - even if his body got it's rest as if it slept through the night undisturbed (which it did), Tsuna's mental state was left wide awake throughout the entire night and thoroughly confused in the morning.

But that same morning, when he finally got back in his body - which he couldn't seem to find the trick to do when he wanted; not when he just got sucked in as his body woke up - he found that it was fresh and well-rested and the boy swore he was ready to run laps around Namimori, even if Tsuna's mind still had the impression of being up all night (which it had been). It felt like a rift between the body and soul that had, strangely enough, been harmonized so that Tsuna didn't feel tired even though once, his spirit hadn't slept for five days straight (because he was only able to properly fall asleep _in his body_ on the sixth night which had come as a welcome change for it's familiarity). Each night, Tsuna wandered around his room, with each time less and less surprised at the inconvenience of this whole mess and less freaked out at seeing his body.

And so, on the third night when he relatively calmed down (the first night had been spent flailing his tiny arms and running around his room, and the second was taken up by trying to continuously trying to somehow fit himself back into his body) and sat on his bed next to his body, watching his long(ish) tail glimmer slightly in the moonlight, he realized that here came the least expected issue in this entire situation.

Boredom.

Because apparently, between nine in the evening, when he was put to bed, and eight in the morning, the time he usually got up, there was a period of eleven whole hours - one hell of a lot of time for one four-year-old child who, even if not as hyperactive as some might be (which was a mistake because he could be just as hyped up on sugar as any other kid) was still a child.

He couldn't go outside his house because he deemed it the only safe place as he never once had seen a monster in it as of yet and he couldn't do his usual activites which involved clinging to okaa-san at any chance he got as she couldn't see him in this state and was in her room, probably doing her grown up stuff like usual.

(Tsuna grew up thinking that the strange sounds and wisps of air occasionally escaping his mother's room were considered a normal thing. He also didn't question when kaa-san, after putting him to bed and most likely thinking he was sleeping, went back to her room, then downstairs, out of their house and only came back at around four in the morning. The brown-haired child, for the sake of a selfish, as he thought, reassurance, had started the ritual of watching his mother go out at around half past nine with a goodbye and greeting her when Nana came back. His mother had a habit of murmuring 'tadaima' so Tsuna had brightened up and automatically replied with a quiet 'okaeri, kaa-san!'. She almost always looked worn out and didn't pay any visible attention to him but the four-year-old preferred to think it was just because she was tired and wanted to sleep. And so the boy had watched every time with his big golden brown eyes as she locked the door and headed upstairs, to her room after which he resumed what he was doing in the first place which usually involved exploring the house he, strangely, hadn't properly done before.)

He spent the fourth night, after waving Nana goodbye, going through the contents of his closet to find something to entertain himself which had, strangely, after being hit by a truck, lost it's former amusement. The games for his age seemed plain stupid now - he felt embarrassed for actually ever being puzzled by them - and all the children picture books with happy endings felt like one big fat lie because Tsuna already knew that life wasn't like that.

On the fifth night when he was wandering around the house, flinching at every shadowed corner and rustle - because even if his house was safe, he still, like every sane child, feared the monsters under the bed and in the closets - and went to the library room on the first floor, he found a solution.

Books.

His mother's library collection was exotic and quite breath-taking. After some browsing (and a couple of heavy books landing on his feet as well as almost falling over from the chair he dragged all the way from the kitchen to reach the books that had been placed higher, which, by the scrawny child's standards, started at the second shelf already) Tsuna had also found out that at least three quarters of the book shelves (or more) were taken up by books about herbs and stars, about myths of creatures unseen by humans, a few with some strange drawings and scribbles that even from the pages seemed to emit a sort of power, about gods and goddesses of different things, even of different religions, about energy, chakra and chi, about auras - Tsuna had wondered why he had always seen a sort of colorful contour around people and everything - about zodiac and year signs, about esotericism and alchemy and psychology, about spirit tales, about history and physical anatomy and finally, about such things as legends of yokai and ayakashi.

The brown-haired child was delighted even if he couldn't understand even one quarter of the words written in the, unfortunately, not-so-thick books. Each page was a dark forest for Tsuna but he didn't even think of giving up, instead finding a thick old dictionary and using it.

The first new word Tsuna had learned was a word that would forever engrave itself in the child's mind and be his favorite word in the close and distant future.

_Fascinating_.

It had described so many things in Tsuna's life and it was a fascinating word itself. Because regardless of how much the brunette was freaked out at the spirit world, after the fright always came curiosity.

Of course, not every word written in the books was true because Tsuna saw everything as it was, unlike some of the authors who mostly guessed and made theories, so he had to handpick through the information he received and note things he didn't know or see yet and came as a possibility for him to encounter in future. When he first read about yokai and ayakashi, he felt the hair on his head prickle because apparently, he hadn't seen the truly horrendous ones yet and hoped he never will. The ones present in Namimori were scary enough.

For the next months, from half past ten in the evening to seven in the morning, Tsuna buried himself in the books of his mother's library, his big eyes opening to the fascinating aspects of the world he was thrown into.

And so, Tsuna had started reading books at age of four and discovered a whole new world of knowledge in the form of words. It really helped him through his life and he would be grateful to books as much as he was grateful to everything else.

If Nana sometimes came into the library to see the carefully arrayed books on the shelves lacking almost a half that was coincidentally scattered all over the floor and the armchair, almost all of them opened on different pages, or the light turned on when she wasn't the one who did it, she didn't say anything.

* * *

It was spring when Tsuna met the household spirit.

As in, the spirit of his_ house_.

Oddly enough, later it turned out to be actually friendly though a bit shy which was probably why the boy hadn't met him right away when he was walking around the house at night like a ghost.

Oh right.

Practically, he _was_ a ghost.

...Drat.

It was raining with an occasional streak of lightning and the little Sawada had been deciphering one of the spirit tales and was so engrossed in the process that he didn't notice the door to the library open slightly as two eyes glowed in the darkness of the corridor, watching unblinkingly.

Tsuna had finished the tale with a feel of great satisfaction. He felt proud of himself for being to read the book that he wouldn't have been able to just a couple of weeks ago. He didn't really know it, but in reality he was making immeasurable progress in reading which made a very big influence on his vocabulary and how he spoke even if he just started being able to read to himself in his head. At first he, of course, read everything aloud, thinking that no one was there to listen anyway so the stutter had gradually went away with every day he pronounced more and more words and he was now able to freely speak unless there was an intimidating person in Tsuna's presence which caused his impression of a fairly confident child to plummet by a thousand points into the negative numbers.

Unfortunately, even his improved speech and growing mental discipline hadn't changed the looks Tsuna got when he, in the most mature way he could, tried to explain why the broken vase on the floor wasn't his fault because "you based your- ow- opinion on the sole- ow- fact that I, Tsunayoshi, have been the only visible- hey stop it already- person you have seen within a three-meter distance of this- oh come on- given vase". It only got him even more incredulous and sceptic looks as the person/people he was explaining to asked Nana why in the world she had told him/her/them that her son was four when he was clearly at least seven with the way he talked and read books they couldn't make their teenaged children read. Add to that his odd tendency to look pained when he talked (because the ayakashi had been gleefully tugging his hair, hard) Tsuna made a fairly unique and not welcomed impression on people. It would lead to even more misunderstandings so Tsuna just decided it wasn't worth it and ignored any attention he got the best way he could, avoiding any fragile objects to prevent himself from getting into trouble just because a yokai decided to break any breakable (or unbreakable) object within the boy's vicinity.

The book Tsuna was reading at the time had explained a fair amount of things, like the fact that normal people didn't see things the way Tsuna did. Apparently, spirits only showed themselves when they wanted and on any other occasion remained invisible to human kind, living in their own Spirit World. But unlike humans, cats and pretty much any other animal seemed to react to the boy in either of his states.

(When Tsuna had gotten kicked out of his body for the _n_th time, he did wonder why every living being aside from humans seemed to react to him as if he was in his body. The brunette had got a wish for Christmas just about then - he wanted a cat. And a black one.)

The book had also said that there is a number albeit small of people who see spirits and walk on the very edge between the mortal and immortal world, either getting ignored from both sides or on the contrary, getting excessive attention from both which led to a difficult life for the person.

Tsuna still couldn't find anything on the 'out of his body' issue which was frustrating because the brunette had been drinking in books with increasing speed and didn't learn anything useful on that particular subject. He had hopes for the next book waiting for him to read about meditation and astral projection which sounded like what Tsuna was going through.

The boy flipped over to the next page when he felt his hair prickle.

"...Master's son, perhaps I may be of any assistance to you?"

Tsuna froze and he felt his poor heart, that just couldn't get used to being scared like this, clench in his chest painfully tight. The book he was holding slipped from his grip and fell onto the floor as the four year old very, _very_ slowly turned his head.

His gaze met the sight of a small dark figure stand in the dark corner of the room, completely covered in hair. It lifted it's head and their gazes met.

Lightning flashed the room with light for one brief second followed by the defeaning sound of thunder.

To the horror of the creature, Tsuna screamed.

...

When Tsuna opened his eyes, he found that he had hid under his bed.

Under his bed.

In his _room_.

Kami, he didn't even _remember_ how he ran out of the library.

...Right, back to the hairy monster that apparently found it's way into his home.

The boy tensed up, fear raking his body as he thought of the must-be-spirit judging from the thing's small, like, half a meter small height and overall size as well as the ability to see Tsuna when he was a spirit.

Though now that he thought about it, the creature didn't look like it wanted to harm Tsuna and believe the boy - he knew _exactly_ how those that wished him harm looked like. On the contrary, the boy remembered what the spirit had said and he sounded as if he held a sort of... respect for Tsuna.

Which was a highly unprecedented matter that the boy had never before experienced. Add to that the fact that the respect had been coming from a mysterious creature that Tsuna was sure no one saw, it was all rather mind-boggling, if even comprehendible.

Shaking his head, the four year old climbed from under his bed, the tuft on his tail oddly puffed as if been electrified, though more accurately said, scared the hell out of, and leaned onto the window frame thoughtfully, finger tracing along the barely-seen cracks of wood.

_And it said 'Master's son'... I wonder what that means. I'm only son to kaa-san and otou-san._

_...And I think I scared it. That's not good. I mean, what if someone screamed at me like that? _

The child spent the rest of his night until the first rays of sunlight thinking over what happened to him in the library, heart skipping a beat at every creak and sound because oh yes, he was one big scaredy cat though gradually calming down at the morning light which seemed to wash away the fear left by the night.

He had come to a conclusion with a determination to fulfill surprisingly strong.

_I'll apologize to it._

...

The next day, when the boy woke up (read: got back into his body) and went down for breakfast, he thought over for opportunities to find the spirit without Nana seeing as it would lead to questions Tsuna hoped to avoid. Tsuna could faintly sense the spirit present in his house now that he payed attention, though not it's exact location - it was actually always there which meant that he'd been living here for as long as Tsuna was, if not longer. Which meant that he was living with a spirit in his house all this time.

...Which also meant that all this time the spirit could've attacked him and done something evil like ayakashi usually did, right? It must be a good spirit then. It was something Tsuna couldn't miss - he wanted to make friends with it! Even the voice that had guided him this far was agreeing.

He smiled at his mother with a 'good morning' and Nana had smiled back and said that she was going to be out for some shopping in a nearby store so she asked him if he was okay with staying at home for approximately two hours. Tsuna saw the chance the second she proposed this and took it.

"Of course, kaa-san!"

When Nana left, Tsuna made sure to see her walk out of the gate and out of ear-shot before turning back into the room as he puffed his little chest and breathed in.

"Ayakashi-san, please come out! I didn't mean to shout at you!"

Unfortunately, he must've really scared the spirit because there wasn't a reply. Tsuna absently wondered since when he was the one who scared yokai instead of the opposite.

"I'm really sorry, ayakashi-san!"

Still no response.

But he had to get on good terms with it! It was polite, held respect for Tsuna and was smaller than the child which meant that the brunette had practically bullied it.

That wouldn't do for someone like himself.

"Ayakashi-san, do you like chocolate?"

The silence was quiet yet it held clear meaning to the four-year-old.

When the brunette went upstairs to his room and came back half an hour later, the open chocolate bar he had left on the table for anyone to see was neatly collapsed in on itself.

Tsuna's smile lit the whole house with sunshine and glitters of moe.

...

Over the time, Tsuna left various foods for the spirit in hope that the latter would at some point reveal itself and accept his apology. The boy hadn't noticed at first but gradually, a strange pattern started occurring in life.

Like, a few times when Tsuna tripped down the stairs, he wouldn't land on the hard floor like usual, with a cushion or pillow mysteriously appearing to have been lying there to soften the fall.

Or when he woke up to find his hair neatly combed, even if they still stuck in every impossible direction. One time he even found that a lock of his hair had been made into a small braid. He thought it was really great and didn't touch it for the rest of the day, ignoring the jeers of the neighborhood boys.

(He'd got the fleeting nickname Girly-Tsuna just about then. Although it somehow disappeared after a while which was fairly mystifying considering the boys' love for calling names.

It might've had something to do with the accidents those boys had, each time after they called Tsuna names. And the flower pot falling on a head wasn't the worst.)

Or when a few times a flu had been going through the town and strangely, his tendency to be one of the first to fall sick seemed to fail as he remained weirdly healthy.

One time, it was injury-preventing, when he had almost slipped on wet floor, just barely missing a sharp corner because some force had literally moved him. It felt really strange but Tsuna knew not question it since he was used to stranger things. Instead, he decided to be grateful.

So about three weeks later, Tsuna had finally accomplished what he set himself to do.

It was ironic, because the spirit had shown itself in the same situation as before.

Tsuna was in the library, reading the book about chakra and energies, his tail flicking behind him, when his ears twitched and he sensed it in the same corner as before. The boy's growingly keen eyes melted into their golden brown as he put a piece of paper to mark the place he stopped at in the book and closed it, standing up to face the ayakashi.

Then without any hesitation or second thought, he bowed to a 90 degree, saying as clearly as he could, "I'm sorry for my inappropriate behavior, ayakashi-san. Please forgive me."

The boy tensed when he didn't hear anything from the other being. Maybe he didn't phrase it right? He had spent three nights thinking of the politest way to say it. Nervously, he raised his head.

The spirit looked frankly shocked.

Tsuna furrowed his brows in concern, head slightly inclining to the left. "Ayakashi-san, are you okay?"

The hairy creature raised a trembling hand, muttering something. The child heard one 'but Master said he doesn't know' and 'such manners' bit. The four year old wondered what that meant.

When the spirit stepped into the light of the lamp, he didn't seem as scary as that time when he was lightning-lit. He looked like a really short old man with lots and lots and _lots_ of hair. He also had startlingly big baby blue eyes that were now downcast with shame.

"Master's son, please forgive old man Le for his rude appearance."

"No no, ayakashi-san, _I'm_ sorry for screaming like that three weeks ago! You have nothing to be sorry for. ...Honestly, tou-san looks much less adequate when he drinks that weird stuff he likes."

"But..."

"Your name is Le, ayakashi-san?"

"Why, yes, Master's son."

"Please call me Tsunayoshi!" the boy said enthusiastically, eyes practically sparkling though it must've been a trick of light. The spirit looked positively taken aback from the child's attitude.

"Tsunayoshi, eh? What a nice name for such a polite young man."

Tsuna reddened profusely which earned chuckles from the old spirit.

"Ne, ayakashi-san... Can I call you Le-jii-san?"

The spirit's eyes widened though soon filling with a sort of gentleness as a smile touched his wrinkled face.

"Of course, Tsunayoshi."

As the two shook hands, Tsuna had discovered with unhidden fascination that Le-jii-san's palms were furry and really soft.

...

Lee-jii-san turned out to be the first friend Tsuna made in the other world. Every day Tsuna would continue to leave something delicious on the table of the living room and a few times he shared meals with the house spirit, even if Nana was there (it just meant that Tsuna asked Le to drink his tea when Nana looked away so the cup hovering in thin air wouldn't look so disturbing).

Le had came into Tsuna's everyday life surprisingly smoothly and neither of them were really discontent even if the ayakashi had been curious about Tsuna's power - problem, as Tsuna referred to it when Le-jii-san had asked - to separate his soul from his body. The child had shrugged and sighed, sharing with his experience and how it all started, including the ability to see and interact with spirits. Le-jii-san was both sympathetic and intrigued at the story about the car accident. An odd expression had touched his face when the brunette mentioned how much his mother Nana had helped with his troubles with 'passing out' and interacting with humans which the four-year-old might've imagined so Tsuna didn't pry, believing that if there was something, the elder would tell him sooner or later.

The boy spent the nights he didn't sleep (e.g. didn't get get thrown out of his own body in random) in the library which had already become an established routine and sometimes during the night, the spirit came to check on him and to make sure he was fine. Apparently, he was under supervision even before their meeting. Tsuna had tried convincing the old man not to bother babysitting him but the house yokai just shook his head with a "Nonsense Tsunayoshi, you are Master's son and it is my duty to look after both you and Master, and after all, it is a shame not to if it's you two we're talking about." and after Tsuna got the blush off his face, he had asked Le-jii-san who Master was.

It turned out to be his mother.

"Nana-dono is a beautiful woman, and a splendid master. Though it is a pity that she cut her hair - I loved to comb them into a braid."

Tsuna had smiled widely. "Kaa-san is really pretty, especially when tou-san comes by."

Le-jii-san's face had darkened at the mention of Tsuna's father and the boy innocently asked why even if he already had the shadows of suspicion himself.

"I do not know Nana-dono's husband so well as he doesn't come to this house so regularly, but from what he demonstrated when he was present here, he is rather... ill-mannered. He drinks, which is, of course, a natural occurrence for men, but in unsuitable amounts. He behaves like an irresponsible human and doesn't show much gratitude to neither Nana-dono, nor to the house he asks care from, taking the kindness for granted. Master really loves him and she never mentioned that she hates even the smell of sake which is something she tries to get rid off once the man disappears, _again_. It is saddening to see Master when the man leaves."

Tsuna's previously curious eyes had lost their usually bright spark and he looked away. His ears had lowered and tail stopped flicking as the information sunk into his mind all-too-fast.

A soft furry hand that ruffled through his hair was unexpected but welcomed as he snuggled fondly into it to the quiet chuckles of the house spirit. They both spent the rest of the night swapping stories, mainly Le who felt guilty to have said such things about Tsuna's father and was trying to cheer the boy up, though Tsuna had a few topics to put in.

Very soon, after a week or so of spending night discussion witht he spirit, Tsuna had started to see a grandfather figure in the old ayakashi (and when he said old, he meant it - Le-jii-san remembered his time of youth when humans only started settling in what was now Japan and he had lots of tales to tell the eager Sawada). The spirit had come to greet Tsuna every time the latter came back to his home which brought a sort of warm fluffy feel in the brunette's chest.

He felt welcomed. And welcomed by someone else than kaa-san.

Tsuna was grateful.

* * *

Spring had passed in a whirl of rains, sakura blossoms and tea nights with discussions of paranormality in a quite normal manner as well as days of human inability to understand Tsuna, and summer came in thunder storms, sun showers and drunk spirits celebrating the festivals for their sake, all of it painting the skies in summer colors and a reignited fire in a boy's eyes.

Autumn had knocked on the door with cold winds and mists in the morning. Tsuna loved fall season but this time it had brought an unpleasant experience.

Oh yes, that was an understatement.

* * *

"Hello there! I'm Hayashi Sumiko. Please call me Doctor Hayashi. You're Sawada Tsunayoshi-kun, right?"

Tsuna stared blankly at the woman sitting behind the desk. He nodded hesitantly and took a step back, clinging to his mother's leg.

A green-haired man with no eyes and three arms was hovering around Doctor Hayashi's head, showing quite rude gestures to the woman, clearly knowing that she didn't see him but continuing anyway. Tsuna watched it wide-eyed and the man seemed to sense his gaze as the monster turned to look at him.

"Good boy! You're such a sweetheart. Now tell me how old you are!"

Tsuna's head snapped back to look at the woman who had just spoken and sighed, wondering when this kind of conversation became so typical for him.

Ever since the accident for half a year now, spirits, for some reason, loved to come prank on Tsuna. When it first started happening, the boy hadn't been as alarmed as he should've been even if he was actually plenty alarmed. The pranks started getting worse though, and around autumn it had became a major problem. He couldn't get why but when they noticed he saw them, they came to scare him, push him, pull on his hair when he was talking to someone, trip him and constantly say rude things about others that the boy just couldn't ignore and spoke back too.

Always realizing his mistake, he watched people give him odd looks and whisper something among themselves, to the gleeful laughter of yokai heard only by Tsuna. The boy, for the first time in his life, had come to know the true horror of rumors - they spread like wildfire that could backfire in many places.

Whenever Tsuna was brought along by his mother to gatherings of grown ups with their kids for reasons the four-year-old didn't bother to memorize, like someone's birthday or a holiday, or some other excuses to socialize and possibly have a good drink, or when he went with kaa-san to stores to shop for groceries, each time he would have at least one accident which usually involved Tsuna trying to ignore an ayakashi that was living in the house/building/shop/mall/tree/general region, the ayakashi becoming aware that the child was aware of it, and the ayakashi coincidentally having a sadistic streak every spirit seemed to posses that would lead to Tsuna running around from it, screeching, which ended up in slightly varying consequences - being asked, quite angrily, why he was behaving in such an odd manner in the best case, and his mother being told to 'take your insolent child away from my house/store before he breaks something else and makes a bad influence on my daughter(s)/son(s)/children' in one of the worse cases.

A popular outcome was the ayakashi taking, for example, a bottle of coke or a bag of chips or any other food when no one except the brunette was looking - apparently both yokai and Tsuna in his spirit state could interact with non-human objects of the human world which ayakashi took great advantage of; hence why Tsuna got blamed in the end - and proceed to open the coke bottle/break the chips bag, afterwards splashing it all over the little Sawada who couldn't do anything about it because when he tried running, he'd just trip over and get even messier. The shop employees always managed to hear the commotion and complained loudly to his mother, demanding that she pay them for the ruined production.

Tsuna felt so embarrassed and ready to fall through the ground even the pranking spirit would find him or herself frozen by the sight of little Tsuna reddening in shame. Unable to stop his tears, he would sniffle into his mother's knees and repeat that he was very sorry and that he didn't mean to and that 'it's all the mowsters' fault'. When he looked up at Nana with tearful eyes, his panicked gaze would meet his mother's warm brown ones and her dazzling smile. She would pet his hair and say that it was okay.

(Not that she paid any money. Nana seemed to know the rights of a customer in perfection, so when it came to a law argument, it was child's play for Tsuna's mother to state every point about 'inappropriate service' and 'bad products' position that led to such accidents', raise an eyebrow and, for the overkill, flash a smile. No one bothered her or her son after that.)

Some of the more 'sympathetic' fellow mothers had insistently told kaa-san to take him to a phycologist. They advised on different ones but each of the perfume-smelly ladies had after some time started yelling at each other so kaa-san just broke the argument by saying that she'd go to each one.

When Tsuna asked who a phycologist was, one of the women with thick red lips had said that 'it's a person you can tell everything and who can help if you have problems'. When the little Sawada asked why they had to go, Nana said there wasn't any harm in it and besides, she was going to be with him all the time. That had calmed Tsuna a bit, though he was still nervous.

Did going to a phycologist mean he could tell them about what he sees?

Turned out, he was wrong which came as a big disappointment on Tsuna's part. Engaging in a conversation with Tsuna in which the boy only just started to tell about what he saw and what really happened around him was resulted in the poker-faced grown ups politely cutting him off just as the brunette explained about the 'monster that eats souls' part and just as politely telling Nana to please find another phycologist.

And so, Tsuna had found himself on the third appointment on this week just because Nana's 'friends' wouldn't, as he much later characterized it in a nutshell, fuck off already. They couldn't allow their pride on knowing something Nana didn't, like the helpfulness of phycologists, to shatter just because of Tsuna who, they believed, was making up things to annoy everyone and make fools of them.

Tsuna, up until now, had never felt that somewhat sharp pain in his chest every time he heard those words. Now he felt each curve of a knife dipped in acid being slowly cutting through his soul, causing his invisible tail to become dull and more transparent with sadness.

But coming back to the situation at hand, he felt his heart plummeting at the sight of the murky dark eyes the doctor had had eyeing him. She was supposed to be 'kind' and 'understanding', as the mothers described her but Tsuna just wanted his mother for that. Kaa-san was more than enough and it felt like betraying her when he talked to another person like this. And frankly, this woman was kind of creepy for reasons he would not like voicing so he would prefer going home already, with his _mother_, thank you very much.

(To be honest, he heard what those parents' children talked to each other about and from what he heard, this woman was not kind. Tsuna had heard from a girl that when she came with her father, the doctor was polite and nice and said that the father could leave the girl with her for a session. She also smiled in a freaky way and every parent just left their child with her, regardless of the fact that the children didn't want to, as they could all relate to the girl. Once the girl was left alone with Doctor Hayashi, the woman became mean and yelled a lot, but when the kids told that to their parents, they didn't believe that the kind and beautiful woman could yell at their child and instead scolded the kid for lying.

Tsuna also wondered when he started thinking less like a naïve four year old and more like, he guessed, an older person, instead of the simple thoughts that sometimes came to his mind before the truck accident. Something truly happened that night because ever since, the four year old found himself thinking about things he couldn't understand no so long ago.

He decided not to give it that much thought as it led him from nowhere to nowhere.

Only later he would understand that stress situations caused people to grow up early as well as the fact that spending the night half of the day in books greatly influenced one's mental age.)

"Now from what I heard, Tsunayoshi-kun says that he sees strange things?"

The brunette perked up and looked at the blonde-haired woman, and nodded silently. It was the exact moment when the monster had thought of the brilliant idea of suddenly dropping from the ceiling down in front of the boy and poking Tsuna.

Tsuna gasped and scrambled away, logically tripping and falling onto the floor, covering his stomach where the man had poked. The green-haired monster-man was cackling voicelessly now, pointing his finger at the brunette.

"S-stop that! It's not funny or a-anything!"

A pause occured in the room in which Tsuna realized what he just said and how it must've looked.

"...Tsunayoshi-kun, could you please stop fooling around and talk with me seriously? This problem of you... talking to thin air like you do causes your mother many problems. We have to clear things up."

"But Doctor Hayashi, it's okay! Tsu-kun is of that age and it is perfectly normal for him to-"

"Sawada-san, I believe _I_ will be the judge of that."

Tsuna stared at the blonde woman who had cut off his mother in the middle of the latter's sentence. He felt something hot bubble in his small chest and for some reason, his hands clenched into tiny fists.

"Tsunayoshi-kun, let me tell you a simple thing you must understand-"

"I don't want kaa-san to have problems because of me."

The quiet yet clearly said sentence interrupted the blonde woman. There was no stutter but there was a tone to it that a four year old child was not supposed to have. She stared at him as the boy's haunted eyes lifted to look at her, involuntarily shaking her to the core.

"I don't want kaa-san to _have_ problems. But I don't know what to do to stop seeing them!"

The little brunette was standing now, fuming in an uncharacteristically angered manner and pointing at the place just next to the door.

"It's there! See, it's scratching it's head and looking at us? It just _poked_ me. Sometimes, they pull on my hair or pinch."

"Tsunayoshi-kun, it's okay to have imaginary friends but-"

"But it's really there! I swear! And it isn't my friend - I guess it looks like he wants to eat me."

"Tsunayoshi, listen to me now-"

"I'm not lying! I-"

And then came another shock for the four year old child when he saw a crocodile smile stretch on the woman's face.

"Sawada-san, could you please step out? This is an individual procedure and I assure you, you will be _astounded_ with the results. I will fix this in one session."

Tsuna's eyes started to water, the rush of certainty he had had up until now running dry, the momentary sliver of orange escaped from the boy's eyes as he turned to look at his mother in hope of her refusing.

"K-kaa-san, please don't go! I-I'm scared..."

When Tsuna found his mother's eyes, she was looking at Doctor Hayashi with a strangely somber look. The tension had spiked kilometers, an uncomfortable silence descending on the cabinet.

Tsuna could swear his mother's eyes had flashed even if it was only a trick of light.

"...Ara? I'd like to stay with Tsu-kun, Doctor Hayashi. I'm sure you wouldn't mind that much."

Mother's usual innocent expression didn't reassure Tsuna at all but it was better than being left by himself in this cabinet.

"Yet I _insist_, Sawada-san. This requires no interference from the parent and I believe you have seen phycologists before me and to no avail. Am I wrong?"

Tsuna looked at Nana with despair shining evidently in his eyes, small fingers clutching the brown-haired woman's hand, the barely but still heard by Tsuna scathing tone that the other woman had used making him feel thoroughly uncomfortable being in one room with her. Doctor Hayashi had stood up from her chair and walked up to Tsuna's kaa-san in a way that the brunette didn't like which just made him hiding behind Nana's legs. The phycologist tsked and almost forcefully drew Nana from Tsuna's grip to the protests of both the boy and his mother.

"I am a doctor, Sawada-san, and you will see the results whether you like it or not."

Tsuna watched as Hayashi pushed his mother out of the room, quickly closing the door after Nana and locking it. Bangs were heard from the other side as Nana's hand collided with the door, however soon followed by the sound of steps walking away.

Tsuna felt betrayed.

Did kaa-san really choose to go away and leave him with this horrible woman and invisible monster all alone?

Something in Tsuna roared and he blurted the first thing that came to his mind at Hayashi.

"I'm not a freak!"

The chuckle that came from the woman caused Tsuna to freeze.

"Well you know what, Tsunayoshi-kun? You _are_. You're a nuisance to your mother and make her look bad."

Tsuna whimpered as he edged away from Hayashi. Streaks of salted water have long since been running down his cheeks and he let go of what was gnawing him from inside.

"Y-you don't understand me, do you? I'm telling the t-truth and you j-just _won't listen_! I always tell you that they're there and you don't believe me because _you_ can't see them. _I_ don't want to see them! I don't want kaa-san to look bad and- and I- I- It's not my fault that the monster is saying bad things about you!"

"YOU BRAT, THERE IS _NOTHING THERE_."

And Tsuna understood.

Understood once and for all, and the phycologist watched, with satisfaction, as the boy's eyes dulled and became shadowed by his bangs.

People don't like those who are different.

People don't believe what they don't see.

People don't wish to be told of what doesn't make sense to them.

If people were to know of his relation to spirits, he will be labeled a freak like this woman just did.

That was the day Tsuna swore to himself that he will never willingly tell a person of what he saw.

Because in all honesty the boy didn't want to be treated like this. Yes, he didn't. The streaks running from the shadows behind his bangs of his gravity-screwed hair were a proof of that.

The child wailed and a shock pulsed through the building.

It wasn't Tsuna.

...

When Nana was forcibly pushed out of the cabinet, leaving her son alone with that, pardon her French, _bitch_, which was the softest way to put it, she was _furious_. The patients in the waiting corridor all looked up from their books or conversations startled and their eyes met a frightening sight of Sawada Nana banging on the door from which they saw someone shoving her out of.

Quickly calculating the fastest way to open the door, Nana saw a cleaning woman passing through the corridor and was suddenly next to the older woman, gracefully asking for the broom she was holding. The woman looked quite surprised but at Nana's flashing gaze yet respecting and convincing words, she nodded and held out the broom which the brown-haired woman took with unusual firmness.

Turning to face the five or six people sitting in the chairs, she announced,

"Ladies and gentlemen, I advise you take cover because-"

And then she heard her son scream.

The people fled and honestly, one couldn't blame them because Nana, for the first time in a long time, unleashed her true vicious aura.

...

Deep in his sorrow and shocking conclusion, the little Sawada didn't hear the sound of his mother _hellishly_ mad approaching the door threateningly, or the sound of a shattering pot neither did he see the door slam open with a gust of wind as Nana barged in with a broom in one hand and a broken plant with pieces of ceramic stuck in it's freshly yanked out roots (unfortunately, it's pot was the only available heavy object to crash the door with), hair flailing in angles they weren't supposed too, and spotted the sight of her son standing in front of Doctor Hayashi, who was towering over the child with her hands on her hips.

When Tsuna was gently picked up by his mother, carried out of the room, put onto a couch outside of the cabinet and told not go anywhere, the door to phycologist's room closed behind Nana with an ominously quiet click.

Doctor Sumiko Hayashi had regretted the very day she chose to become a children's phycologist for her own mental satisfaction of bullying kids.

It was also the last time Nana had _ever_ taken Tsuna to a doctor.

...

Much later, it had turned out that the green-haired spirit had been living in the place for a long time and was infuriated with the woman's outrageous antics towards the patients of this center and was trying to warn Tsuna to stay away from her in his own language.

* * *

For the next year, little Tsuna had to deal with the trials of ignoring the shadows he constantly saw lurking in the corner of his vision and the outright obvious yet unseen by people creatures.

The traumatic experience with Doctor Hayashi had engraved in his mind a fear of doctors. It was actually in par with that of soul-eating monsters and frankly? Tsuna could see why.

He would very much like to avoid any further interactions with people in white coats which was why he had to ignore the transparent people with chains sticking out of their chests walking in plain daylight. Tsuna was really bemused because from the spirit tales he read in the books and seen on TV, he had assumed that spirits and souls only come out in the night but that turned out to be a stereotype though it did have a seed of truth. Indeed, at night everything translucent became much more solid and even able to touch humans beings.

He had to avert his eyes from the monsters that hunted such people. Though fortunately, or unfortunately, usually they did so in the dead of night, far away from Tsuna's house so he didn't have to witness their presence and the whole process of... consuming.

Tsuna still felt it and his breath hitched painfully in his throat which attracted unnecessary attention of other people. The brunette had to stifle down the fright and terror he constantly felt in his heart and his demons, who had found their voices on that last 'therapy' session, were forced down into the very depth of the child's soul, even if Tsuna still felt them burning sky high fires or despair and poking ice sticks of fear from inside.

After all, he didn't want to cause kaa-san troubles.

He had to pay no attention to the other creatures that normal people around Tsuna didn't notice or care about. The thing was, Tsuna, even in his body, seemed to smell somewhat funnily and there was always something that came sniffing at the little boy. The Sawada had, not as quickly as he liked, found out that if you steadily ignore it and keep to crowded, happy and lighted places, such creatures tended to go away because, he supposed later, his smell mixed with those of other people. Although ignoring a particularly persistent creature that is hovering in front of your eye, while the thing was covered in godforsaken _spikes,_ was a trial of patience and calmness that Tsuna could not always endure even if he remained as stoic as he could in the face of things he couldn't protect himself from.

Unfortunately, Tsuna couldn't always ignore the spirits, especially when he got caught by surprise - it was one thing when he saw a fox standing on it's rear paws, talking to another creature in rather shady clothes or when he was nearly trampled by the scary one-eyed lady running around _without her clothes_, because okay, maybe he could deal with it,but it was an entirely other thing when the creatures noticed that he saw them and tagged along to scare the spirit out of the boy just for the sake of fun - which brought unwanted questions and reactions from the grown ups and kids. More than once he had been caught staring at spots and when people saw him flinch from something invisible to them, whispers started following Tsuna through the neighborhood. The boy was already starting to fear that kids his age will start calling him a freak in kindergarten even though he tried his best to avoid awkward situations.

Mother was a big help too because she had a gift for talking people out of suspicions, though the fact why she was so adamant about not being thrown off by Tsuna's strangeness remained a mystery to the brunette. He felt indescribably grateful and in return, set himself to cause as little damage and trouble to anything around himself as he could, because it wouldn't be fair to his mother if he didn't.

Tsuna had also discovered that he should be grateful that he found Le-jii-san.

Le-jii-san was a very very _very_ kind spirit. Why? Well, for instance, he didn't make fun of him.

Even if it _was_ a bit exasperating when Le-jii-san had only chuckled at Tsuna as he told- okay, _complained_ to the former about the way ayakashi treated the boy. He'd asked why and the elder only shook his head and said, "Tsunayoshi, you should count yourself lucky for you are still left alive."

Tsuna had reluctantly accepted this and tried looking at the bright side instead.

Which, as he learned, appeared to become brighter when he chose not to be around other people that much. Yokai still found him anyway so he might've at least escaped one side of the pressure.

That was how he got his first nickname - Shizukana-Tsuna. To avoid any incidents he just secluded himself from other children and when the teachers asked why, he'd just say that he wasn't good at playing games and talking which, sadly, had been just the case because as it turned out, Tsuna wasn't a social butterfly like some kids. After a while, it just became a habit for everyone to ignore the small child who sat under the branching sakura tree, either reading a much too thick book for a boy his age, or silently watching in random directions and whispering something to thin air for unknown reasons, sometimes in a panicked tone and sometimes simply running away as if struggling to get away, and sometimes looking as if he'd suddenly passed out in an awkward position. When the teachers would worriedly look for anything wrong, they'd just see that Tsuna was sleeping and carried him into a room for naps.

The boy was a walking mystery to the kindergarten staff and other children chose not to interact with the brunette because he was, well, strange.

No one knew that Tsuna was left sitting on the sakura tree, clinging to a branch for dear life so an ayakashi couldn't reach him though it didn't really help as another one was pulling at his hair from the air. Because of course, the problem of being randomly kicked out of his own body still remained unsolved.

Sometimes, Tsuna wondered exactly why he looked like the perfect target for bullying, be the bully human or yokai. Once, when he'd got honest to God fed up and yelled at a spirit, inquiring about why they flocked around him and made him look like a fool and caused him pain when he didn't to anything to them, he'd managed to catch a faint phrase.

"Because we're... bored."

The disbelieving look Tsuna gave the ayakashi made it reconsider it's life's ideals though the boy didn't get to know it as he bangs his head on a wall.

Right.

He was a source of entertainment now.

Just great.

Tsuna's fifth birthday passed as a particularly uneventful day because kaa-san hadn't taken him out and instead threw a small birthday party which consisted of a chocolate cake, a couple of presents - a robot and a book of spirit tails because Nana had seen his attraction to supernatural 'fiction' that wasn't really fiction; he loved kaa-san so much! - and watching movies.

Le-jii-san had stroked his beard thoughtfully and couldn't seem to believe how fast human years had passed. The house spirit had also given Tsuna a small present - a green omamori. It was an amulet that provided a protection of some sorts and Tsuna had seen how it worked - even if it couldn't fend off any major spirits, the small fry like the Coal Tar (which was how the little flocking black things with horns were called) hadn't seemed to disturb Tsuna anymore by getting in his eyes in the most inappropriate of moments.

The old ayakashi had found himself drowning in flowers and sparkles emitting from an overjoyed Tsunayoshi.

And so the little boy was left to figure things out on his own and stress about walking in two worlds simultaneously, with no one to ask for help or guidance apart from his only friends - books and the house spirit Le-jii-san, otherwise earning off-hand remarks of his 'weirdness'.

But on one winter day, Tsuna discovered something that would ten years later be the reason for becoming a candidate for the boss of the Vongola.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey people! S'up? Enjoying this so far?

Please tell me if the OCs are fine. Honestly, they just come into the picture all by themselves so it's not my fault! (Well, it _is_, so sorry...) The house spirit is loosely based off the Russian house spirit _domovoi_ because I wanted this and the phycologist is a bitch so it should be okay, right? (By the way, the thing with the house spirit combing hair? They actually love it. Mom told me she lived with a domovoi when she was thirteen and every morning she'd wake up with her hair combed. She's also done of the memory of her shaking hands with it - apparently, they're whole palm is furry. You know cats and dogs have bare skin on the front side of their paws and fingers? Well the domovoi she had encountered had a fully furry hand! It' a a real shame she moved out of there and didn't get the chance to take him with her.)

And well, as you see, I've been making a totally OOC Nana and frankly speaking, I'm not sorry. Honestly, this character is far too underestimated and undeveloped! She deserves much much _much_ more. And yes, I will be making Nana into a mother Tsuna and she herself deserves to be. She will also play a big part in this fic unlike some other ones. I know very well that Nana-bashing can result in wonderful opportunities for Tsuna-angst, but this fic is not centered on angst even if there will be, of course, elements of it. *is a shameless fan of angst myself*

**Question**: Please tell me whether you want: A) to have Tsuna meet his future Guardians before Reborn arrives B) or not. I strongly wish for the former because I think it would be great. But I'm still asking you so tell me your opinion! A simple 'A' or 'B' in the review is all I need so please spend a couple of second on that;) It's very important to me and the future plot^^

Love, peace and cookies

River Melody

P.S. Aside from the cookies, I'll also give you a portion of ice cream for the inconvenience *hands everyone cookies and ice cream* Sorry again!


	4. Flames Protect: Part One

******Edit:** SORRY AGAIN PEOPLE! I was trying to update this chapter because of the numerous grammar mistakes I found and somehow ended up erasing this chapter (good that I had backup!) I'm very very very sorry that this isn't an update but I'm already half way through the next chapter so stay tuned for one!

* * *

**Sora no Seishin**

* * *

**Flames Protect**

* * *

**Warnings: **AU, Spirit!Tsuna, Flame!Tsuna, Curious!Tsuna, Determined!Tsuna, Slightly-sarcastic!Tsuna, A-bit-snarky!Tsuna, Smart!Tsuna, Clever-for-his-age!Tsuna, Swearing!Tsuna, Japanese folklore, OCs, Sky Guardians before Reborn, curses, violence, possession, loads of supernatural, Pre-Reborn (Reborn won't appear earlier than 15 chapter).

* * *

**Heads Up:** Other worlds, spirits, yokai, ayakashi, mononoke, deities, gods and goddesses, Hollows, Shinigami, demons, witches, dragons, spells, auras, magic, elements, a new type of flames, FIRE, active volcanoes, rivers that have seen times before humans had been created, an elderly Sensei that makes Reborn look like a baby, a wolf god who is a relative of a certain canon character, and Nana who has a lot more to her than she lets people know. A Tsuna that grows up seeing and interacting with things people don't see and the consequences.

* * *

Inspired by '**Angel with a Shotgun**', the Cab (Nightcore version)

* * *

Tsuna was five when he first met his flames.

Terrifying didn't cut what he had experienced but reflecting on it, Tsuna thought that he might not have discovered his flames if it wasn't for what had happened then.

He had instantly, the second after seeing them, come to love his flames without any stupid, _meaningless_ second thoughts of whether they were 'normal' or 'weird'. That's the upside of being little - you don't question such things.

You just accept them the way they _are_. And to Tsuna, his light orange flames were a subject of wonder and reassurance.

He'd never trade them for anything.

All because he found something of his own that he could keep and _protect_.

* * *

"Don't wander around, Tsu-kun! You _know_ what happens if you pass out in the middle of the street. Don't make your kaa-san worry like that!"

Tsuna sighed heavily as he walked out of the house, because he wanted to go outside but had to remain on the house's territory so if something were to happen then kaa-san would hear. His mother's constant warnings still stung because Tsuna _knew_ that he was fine.

Oh wait.

That was a lie.

Tsuna was anything but fine though as horrid as it sounded to Tsuna, he was starting to get used to it the same way he got used to the fact that tou-san wasn't going to live with them. He almost smacked himself at the comparison but it _was_ true. Perhaps being a kid helped in the adjustment thingy though the brunette had wondered if he was normal in the first place because, if being very very honest, he didn't see the problem in discussing the question of how kaa-san made her food so heavenly with Le-jii-san every day, despite the latter being an invisible house spirit.

At least he was friendly and accepted the boy the way he was, unlike the children in Tsuna's kindergarten.

It had been almost a year since he was first thrust into the world of supernatural and Tsuna was having problems controlling the process of staying in his body, which constantly fell behind, resulting in his spirit stumbling out. The boy had already started getting used to the fact that when he heard gasps and exclamations of 'poor boy, fainting like that', he could say that he was going to see his body from another perspective again. Tsuna had, after trail and error, found out that coming back was relatively easy, the only condition being touching his chest and not resisting being pulled back in. But it still sucked because when he woke up, he felt dizzy and kind of... earth bound. As if when a spirit, he was much more free.

Which could be right, because Tsuna had found out that unlike in his utterly clumsy body, he actually liked running and jumping as a spirit, something he gave up doing before this mess happened, because he'd end up with scraped knees and bumps. When he tripped as a spirit, he would, for some reason, not face plant right into the ground instantaneously and would have time to properly put his feet or hands on the ground, as if gravity didn't quite work on him as it did usually. The translucent tail had first felt as merely an added weight but soon the boy had found out that with it he had much more ease with finding balance when he climbed walls - something he couldn't do but always wanted to try to, which he guessed was a boy thing - and walk along them. The advantage of being unnoticed by people was the upside of the 'I'm an empty spot for humans' issue. Tsuna then set himself to observe other creatures and had found out that those were much more advanced - they could just hover in the air, or float, or walk up and down walls or even fly up and disappear somewhere into the sky. Some could actually walk on water.

To Tsuna, it was utterly _fascinating_.

But that was a matter to investigate and work on once he stopped freaking out every time he saw his tail and found a place where other people wouldn't freak out at the sight of a little boy fainting.

He didn't bother to wonder when this other reality became a normal occurrence in Tsuna's life.

Sighing yet again, the now five-year-old neared the gate leading to the world beyond the walls of his home and froze, watching a couple of multi-tailed kitsune slide through the street, eyeing the rows of houses warily.

_What are _they_ doing here?_

The little Sawada had first seen a kitsune four months ago and although they were rather pretty, with long and fluffy tail(s) in a natural orange red, he felt uncomfortable being spotted by them. He was too scared of that intense stare that penetrated into your darkest secrets that the spirit foxes had in their slitted eyes. Tsuna always felt literally like a tuna fish on the roaster under those intense gazes. He knew fully well that he was just being a scaredy-cat and that from what he read, their kind could sometimes be loyal companions and overall good spirits but still.

Sometimes.

Which implied, very clearly, that not _always_.

Better safe than sorry.

That was what the voice that had guided him this far had told him.

(He also read about the reiko and kuko foxes and he definitely didn't want to cross paths with them. He'd rather befriend - if it was possible - a zenko, said to be messengers from Inari herself.)

The boy watched wearily as the fox demons disappeared around the corner. Just as the creatures' presence started to fade - another matter Tsuna seemed to pick up on, presences in the Spirit World were as apparent as, say, a scent, or even a sort of feeling; to the five-year-old it seemed like a mix of noise, scent and a set of emotions he couldn't quite put his finger on - the eyes and little creatures made of soot that had legs and eyes, _suswatari _if he wasn't mistaken, slowly blinked into existence, having previously hidden in whatever places they could. A couple of cow-headed yokai peeked from around the corner, clearly relieved that the carnivorous creatures have passed.

Unlike monsters that ate souls or the eyes that watched from the shadows or the blue moss that Tsuna had found growing in the Spirit World, while not seen in the material one (he found out that it fed off emotions, especially negative), kitsune were those creatures that were many steps up the food chain (or whatever worked in this spirit society). They were like inugami and tanuki and neko, although after Tsuna had witnessed a rather tense argument between a fox and dog demon, he concluded that it's better for your health not to confuse them for each other.

Yokai. Ayakashi. Mononoke.

Those were the terms used for all of them, although Tsuna was kind of doubtful - he couldn't even start comprehending how one can classify all the vast numbers of creatures and beings that he had only seen here, in Namimori. Who knew how many other beasts were out there, just outside of Tsuna's homeland? But, he supposed it was just as humans were called humans, regardless of the major differences between the given examples of the same species.

Nontheless, Tsuna wasn't ready to meet a yokai. No, they were far too scary for him and just watching them caused shivers to jump, stomp and skip a polka dance down his spine. The brunette shook his head, running a hand through his hair, clearing away the thoughts. It all caused a headache that was surely coming.

He walked up to a wall and stood on the tips of his toes, trying to look over it, and maybe catch a glimpse of the two foxes that have been running down the street just moments before. The brunette pursed his lips and wondered why they have been so close to his house when the usual times he saw kitsune and other ghostly folk were at the market or the shrine.

Namimori Shrine. It was a truly amazing place and Tsuna hadn't been aware of that before. The one time he'd been there just before his fourth birthday, even though it was a really fuzzy memory, he could say that he didn't notice anything of what was really going on there, but he did recall a rather wary feeling, like the shrine wasn't quite like the rest of Namimori. As if something ancient and enormous was residing in it.

Only later did he get to know of it.

Now that he thought of it, the foxes were headed in that general direction.

Tsuna quietly muttered, "I wonder why-"

That's when his senses roared at him. The boy's heart skipped a beat and he landed on his back, thankfully on the grass. His brown eyes widened as he tried to understand what in the world caused this reaction. Kaa-san must've heard how he fell because she was sprinting out into the front yard and picking him up on her arms, carrying him back into the house and to his room on the second floor. She was asking if he was alright, because to her it looked as if her little Tsu-kun had just seen a ghost.

Be the little boy just a bit more observant at the time, he might've noticed the frown on Nana's face and the way she looked out of the window the way he'd being looking earlier, with a thoughtful expression.

Instead, the five year old nodded, rather shakily, that he was okay and that he was just a bit tired.

She smiled and let it slip for reasons known only to her.

Asking for the last time - just to be sure - if he was alright and if he would like something to eat, she got a positive for the first and a negative reply for the second. Nana faked sighing and shook her head, saying that she'd just made rice miso and that it was a shame Tsu-kun didn't want to eat. That earned her a smile and giggle - oh, little Tsuna, he had no idea how adorable his smile was - but she still didn't get a 'yes' for a lunch. She still chuckled and headed out of Tsuna's room, down to the kitchen.

...

As soon as kaa-san left the room, Tsuna's smile slid off his face, leaving a half-scared, half-worried brown in the boy's eyes. He jumped off his bed, tripping over a foot in the process, but he had a knack for curling in on himself, hiding his face in his hands so when he hit the floor, it wouldn't hurt as much as how it would have if he face planted, and headed to the window to look out and hopefully see what had happened. Opening the window, the five-year-old, as ashamed as he was to, admitted to himself that what frightened him most in this situation was the unknown. He had no idea how he should react and whether it was any of his concern in the first place.

...But what if something was going on? What if it disturbed his home? What if it was related to those kitsune earlier? What if his senses were right and something ominous was taking place at in Namimori? What if-

Oh, how tired Tsuna was of the countless 'what if's. It was annoying and frustrating and he'd rather have a clear answer or not ask those questions at all but his paranoia was something the brunette had had since he remembered himself. And it had a habit of nagging Tsuna for days on end. Paranoia must've not liked him because sometimes it caused him sleepless nights.

Tsuna didn't like it back, so they were even.

Just when the boy was about to dismiss his inner voice and go drink some tea with kaa-san, the second wave hit him sending him stumbling, though this time he landed on the bed. He shook his head which was filled with a ringing noise at the moment, that refused to stop.

Shooting bothered looks at the window, the small brunette breathed out of his nose curtly and climbed onto the bed, lying down on his side, his back facing the door. He pulled up the blanket so his face would be covered.

He didn't need kaa-san coming in to see unnecessary things.

Tsuna closed his eyes and curled up under the cloth, feeling comforting warmth spreading through his body. Too bad he wasn't staying here to enjoy it. The boy did the opposite of concentrating and relaxed mind, searching for that feeling after which he usually ended up out of his body.

It was something he'd only master years later to the point that he'd need one second flat to get out but everything had a start and so, after half an hour, Tsuna almost drifted to sleep when he found himself being kicked out onto the cold floor. About to fall asleep, Tsuna jerked awake, realizing that he'd achieved what he was trying to do all this time. He sighed, because he was still little and enjoyed his naps.

Shaking his head to completely come to his senses, he once again went to the window he opened earlier and climbed onto the windowsill, feeling much more firm than he ever did in his body. He looked out and saw clearly the border between his house's territory and the outer world. And it was not the wall, even though it did run with it's line.

Tsuna had, very soon after coming back to his body that day of the accident a year ago, started to absolutely _love_ his house. That was the only place he felt safe and was pretty much the only place no other-worldly creatures stepped into. His house was bright and clean of any filth (in either worlds - human or spirit) and Tsuna liked it that way, although he was immensely curious in what caused such a defense from the house.

Of course, he'd asked Le-jii-san about it because it had been logical for the only supernatural being (aside from Tsuna) who, as the spirit himself said, protected the house but the spirit only smiled and said that he wasn't the one to do it. When Tsuna did hesitantly ask who it was, the elder just ruffled his hair and disappeared.

Tsuna noted that this was normal behavior for ayakashi.

He did see quite a few attempts of those little black eyes trying to creep through the microscopic cracks of the Sawada territory's walls but there was always something preventing them from doing so. As if something was rejecting their presence in the first place. Tsuna was curious but not enough to try poking at the places where he saw the border start and end because he'd like it to continue working and knowing himself, he'd probably just screw something up again.

The five-year-old took a deep breath, still quite a bit unused and fairly scared to jump but he reasoned with himself that he'd already done it several times when it had been necessary so he could do it again.

His ears twitched at the distant sounds and seemed to pick up some sort of vibrations pointing to the area around Namimori Shrine. For the numerous time, Tsuna found himself asking whether he would regret going to check out things there and once again gulped, finding no adequate way to counter that question.

Saying that it would be okay was a crystal obvious lie because it never was entirely safe to walk this reality, even in the day, and he never knew what waited for him just around the corner. To say he could always run away if he wanted to was another doubtful matter because he was far from able to outrun any creatures if they were specifically after him and he sucked at hiding, which he was working on - he seemed to have an awfully tasty presence if the creatures that constantly came flocking at him were anything to judge by.

Nevertheless, Tsuna was still a child and as every more or less healthy child, his curiosity had been far too piqued to step down now.

"Just a glance won't hurt, right?" he muttered quietly, fidgeting as he looked into the distance from where the troublesome waves seemed to come. The boy sighed and carefully slid off the windowsill, slowly lowering himself until his hands were the only ones holding him on to the window, that way shortening the distance between himself and the ground. Then he made sure his eyes were open and that he'd land on his feet and hands, not his back parts.

And he let go.

To be entirely truthful, Tsuna was really happy when his feet touched the ground and he didn't instantly collapse, feeling as if he'd only jumped off a bench, not the second floor. He was still not used to the fact that the descend through air technically took more than it would've taken for him to fall. The boy always had a slight feeling of weightlessness when he jumped or ran and his mind still freaked out a bit at times.

He breathed a sigh of relief and stood up, dusting off his hands and giving his tail a light shake, so the dirt that seemed to stick to it came off. The five year old sprinted to the gate and peeked through the bars, making sure that there weren't any big monsters or yokai near. Somehow, this blessed house seemed to able to hide his presence because there were rarely any creatures crowding in front of his home.

Upon making this observation half a year ago, he'd walked up to the house and hugged it. Yes, he hugged it. Because, unlike some other people, it was being very nice to him. The way kaa-san had smiled at him when she came to call him inside and saw him throwing his hands around a corner of the building, rubbing his cheek affectionately and mumbling 'thank you's, was quite odd.

Le-jii-san had only watched from the roof and chuckled good-naturedly, neither qiesitoning such behavior nor doing anything to prevent it.

Privately, the spirit thought that this was the most grateful and gratifying boy he'd seen in his long life.

After that, for some inexplicable reason, even the smallest of spirits that were earlier able to at least crawl the walls from the outside were not allowed to even come within a three meter distance of the house's borderline. Tsuna didn't need to wonder why and only made it a habit that each time he comes back home, he runs a hand on a wall and says an audible 'thank you', even if he got strange looks from his neighbors and people who happen to pass by.

Frankly, Tsuna didn't give a damn.

So not sensing anything out of ordinary Tsuna, quite gracelessly but nevertheless efficiently, climbed over the gate and landed with a loud _thud!_ outside. He could feel himself passing through the barrier, harmless to him but fatal to anything not welcomed into his home. Looking down the street where the yokai he'd seen had disappeared, the boy gulped audibly. Then his brown gaze sharpened and he nodded to himself. The half-lion cub turned around to face his house and saluted in a childish manner, getting the feeling that it was wishing him good luck. Turning back, the boy muttered a 'yosh' and headed in the direction of Namimori Shrine.

Tsuna didn't see his mother walk out of the house, her usually carefree gaze sobering with worry.

...

In the end, he didn't even get to the stairs leading to the shrine when the troubles started.

It really happened fast.

_Too_ fast.

Honestly, he cursed that stupid streak that made him step out of his home exactly on that day.

Tsuna rounded a corner that led through another couple of streets after which the straight quarter-mile walk to the shrine started and he'd sensed them coming before they sensed him.

Since he neared his destination, there have been several more shock waves proving that something violent was happening at the shrine and Tsuna would even dare say that there was an actual fight going on there. The two kitsune he'd seen earlier had been at one point spotted by the brunette running through the air, having a heated argument about something. The brunette's sensitive ears picked up faint 'Mori-sama', 'It just had to happen today', 'It's winter and one of the darkest days of the year', 'It was bound to happen on this week', 'Be thankful it's not on the darkest day' and a particularly spat 'Dirt, scum, Mori-sama shouldn't waste any of his power on them when it's these days'.

Tsuna frowned at this new pile of information and after futilely trying to figure out what it all meant, gave up and proceeded to start walking much more cautiously. Even if he had no idea about what was going on, caution never hurt anyone.

...Said paranoia. Who was, to say, having a confused time itself as if it couldn't quite decide on what to advise (read: scream at) the five year old. It felt as if there were much more than one bad possibility and less than zero good ones. This inner voice seemed to have one big ego to be so reluctant to just give up and tell Tsuna that it didn't know what the hell was going on.

That made Tsuna more than suspicious - oh suspicion, that nibbling little annoyance which was all-the-more frustrating because it tended to be right - and if that was the case, then it was that bad, was it? Knowing his luck - one of the rare guests in Tsuna's head which tended to stick a tongue and keep an explosion-ranged distance from the brunette's life - and his allergy to un-eventfulness, that could just be the truth.

And that's where fear came in, all-too-realistically showing Tsuna the wonderful, in it's opinion, images of his safe house and frightening visions of creatures with skull-masks, some gruesomeful details on the way they fed and pointedly made Tsuna remember that he had a tasty aroma in this reality.

But then in came intuition which was one that resided in Tsuna since a very very long time ago and had usually stayed silent until this whole new reality showed up in Tsuna's life, so the five-year-old still thought it was rather mysterious. Though he was also very grateful to this whatever-it-was because it had saved Tsuna several times already.

And Tsuna actually referred to it as a 'him'. He didn't know why and might never know, because _he_ was mysterious and preferred to look cool, but somehow, the child couldn't bring himself to care.

...Oh yes, Tsuna's inner world was messed up and he'd like it to remain that way because otherwise it would have been boring.

Snapping out of his thoughts, the small brunette's golden brown eyes widened drastically. He slowed down his jog and leaned onto a wall, crouching on one knee to peek around the corner because Mister Mysterious-Pants had just lightly suggested to stop going any further and get the_ hell_ out of this place.

As if on that stupid, annoying, goddamned _cliché_ cue, everything around the boy started going dark in consuming blackness, covering the sky, the sun, the ground and it was soon to cover the brunette too.

The child suddenly realized how completely alone he was.

And he heard them howl.

Tsuna ran faster than he ever did.

...

They were closing on him.

Fast.

The child could feel it, feel on the most basic level of his existence and he didn't get to know what the _they_ were. He just knew that wherever they were, he _shouldn't_ _be there_.

Ever.

The brunette ran - ran swiftly, gracelessly, but he didn't even have a moment to spare to think about it. No, the only thought in his head was to _get away_, whipping painfully to make him run faster, _faster_, _**faster**_, _**FASTER**_!

He had to admit, even if he hated it, he would later be grateful that at least his inner world teamed up for the occasions when he was in real trouble, continuously spurring him to use his spirit advantages he knew of to the full-extent it currently had, even if it hadn't helped much because his spirit was still much too slow and clumsy even if Tsuna's body beat it to that.

The boy rounded a corner, heart beating against his ribcage wildly as it gave a start, almost filling with joy of seeing the glass windows of shops and the sunshine reflecting which had been blocked out by something dark that seemed to coat the sky.

It wasn't storm clouds.

And just as equally, if not even more rapidly, his heart plummeted down with a deafening sound.

It was a dead end.

Tsuna's brown eyes widened and the quivering light that had up to now still found it's place in those big bright orbs was extinguished mercilessly with an ice-cold bucket of reality. He turned around to run but all his panic-filled gaze met was a surrounding obscurity, cutting him off from any escape.

The child felt shivers run down his spine as tears of sheer terror started streaming down his face not even making him sob, not having the strength to do even that. Black wisps seeped into his line of vision and the menacing presences that had been pursuing him finally came out of the shadows.

Tsuna stumbled back, away from the inhuman creatures with those pupilless empty eyes full of craving.

Craving for one's life they could take away.

He was alone and no one was going to come save him. No one believed him and the few times he trusted someone to admit the reason behind his flinches and staring, the person would say that Tsuna told lies.

He felt his back against the wall and once again, he came to know that there were all-too-many things in this other world that words didn't, could _never_ express. 'Fear' and 'fright' sounded so distant from what he was feeling right now and almost laughable, if not so sad, and to be accurate, they were almost non-exist in this reality of tremendous emotions where Tsuna was about to be... About to be...

_I..._

Darkness started to engulf him. Black crept up Tsuna's legs - already reaching his waist and his chest and he lifted his arms to see that he couldn't see them anymore-

_I will..._

Deathly yellow eyes narrowed down on the little cub, waiting for him to pass out so they could seize him and devour him whole. Tsuna's vision began darkening at the edges and he couldn't see anything beside those hungry eyes that didn't have a drop of anything else than hunger in them.

_...I want-_

He was going to die. Tsuna knew it on the same instinctive level that every living being does. And like every living being, he could see the Choice lying in front of him, demanding his answer now, already, while it was there, and not taken away by the predators after him.

**Do you want to live or will you die?**

The child's breathing hitched as he felt the darkness creep into his mouth and throat. He started coughing violently and the miasma only increased it's attacks. The tiny ray of sight he still had left in his right eye was rapidly closing and soon it would be covered entirely.

_I don't want to die._

The growling had stopped and so did Tsuna's heart because it knew that they were about to rip him apart. What was left of Tsuna's vision was one needle hole and he could see the rainy sky, which was strange, because he couldn't see it just a moment earlier. His eyes widened even more as a wave of something hit him, leaving the boy trembling with an obvious yet so shocking realization.

_I don't want to die!_

It was gone. The sky, the one he'd just seen a moment before, it was gone. Like that. Out as if it were a small candle. As if it was never there. As if nothing different from the blackness had ever entered the Tsuna's gaze, Tsuna's _mind_. He could feel the fangs and claws pouncing at him, a moment away from piercing his throat, his eyes, his _heart_.

The silence was ripped apart with a scream.

"_I WANT TO __**LIVE**__!_"

...

_Orange._

_Red._

_Yellow._

_Golden._

The colors of the sky had finally found their master and their master finally acknowledged them.

And the world exploded in heaven-blazing flames.

...

Tsuna didn't hear the start of a bucket-pouring rain, supposed to be sad but instead filled with rays of the finally seen sun and hidden rainbow colors that washed away the sorrows of whatever stood in it's way.

Tsuna didn't feel the claws that were able to leave a cut that would scar on the boy's spirit to serve as an engraved reminder.

Tsuna didn't see the beasts of darkness, the kings of shadows, said to be on par with seven-tailed yokai, dissevers into nothingness, completely purified.

Tsuna didn't care that his shirt was now stained in blood and didn't bother to think why he'd have blood when he was a spirit.

No, when Tsuna blinked his saucer-wide eyes open, he found himself watching with open wonder the crackling fire flaring and blazing with sunset orange around him, above him, _in_ him, and the feeling that always seemed to be inside him was now a thousand times stronger, pulsing with the flickers of the flames surrounding him.

"Y-you... Are you protecting me?" Tsuna felt stupid because there was no way such a beautiful thing could have any relation to him, much less bother to keep him safe.

But the fire just slowly receded, to the point until the only flames were those that flickered in Tsuna's palms and on his forehead. A stray thought, most likely paranoia's fault, fleeted through his head, questioning how his hair hadn't caught fire yet and it was almost instantly dismissed as irrelevant because the brunette had much more important things right now.

He was looking into one of show cases of the shop in the dead end, staring at the sight of a boy with a pair of lion ears sticking in unnaturally different directions and a tail with a fire-lit tuft, a chest covered in blood, flames burning in his hands and all around him, including his hair, not burning, and two wide golden brown eyes. Tsuna looked down at his right hand and felt the flames vibrate impatiently.

They were demanding to be let loose to protect their master.

But their master was busy with another matter entirely, as his eyes softened, watching the fire with a pure child wonder.

"You're so beautiful."

Such a simple statement yet Tsuna could feel those flames that he now knew were a part of himself give a startled feeling as if they were not used to such words and treatment.

Then slowly, the brunette felt the flames practically smile back at him with a grin, shifting in his palm into a figure of a minute kitten made entirely of fire.

Suddenly, it's expression changed into that of bare worry and concern.

That's when the frail child felt his - he only noticed now - shaking knees buckle under him and the world really did go black for Tsuna.

_But at least I'm not alone anymore._

...

Tsuna didn't feel a gust of strong wind flash through the alleyway, leaving in it's wake a light-colored figure. The person held a broom and was gazing down at the unconscious form of the little boy lying limply on the ground with eyes that many knew but wouldn't recognize as of now because of their lighter hue and knowing look. Smiling softly, the person crouched down and picked up the small form in one hand as if the boy was only of a feather's weight and with the following flurry of warm air, they were both gone.

...

Tsuna had dreamed of clear skies, strong winds, white clouds and flying brooms. He also dreamed of gentle laughs and, for some reason, all-too-familiar kind brown eyes.

...

At the shrine, the forest deity of Namimori, finishing off the last of the shadow mononoke that dared possess his wolves, raised his head as a smirk slowly stretched on it's muzzle.

"The Fire Guardian has finally awakened." He chuckled. "Might as well fetch some sake to celebrate with Kawa-san. A pity that Kaze-chan can't. Knowing her, she must be busy being a lightning rod to attract truly dangerous things to herself instead of the Fire Guardian."

The beast's eyes narrowed at the town lying under his slitted gaze.

Leaves rustled and he wasn't there anymore.

* * *

**A/N:** Heyo, everybody! What's up? Did you miss me? *cheeky Jim Moriarty grin* Oh yeah, Sherlock fan to the core... And I'm not sorry ^^

But very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very _very_ sorry for not updating in so long. Almost a month! I'm really sorry everyone. The thing is, I try to give it my all to write the best quality writing I can manage, because comparing to all my other works, this one is on an entirely new level and with my snail-speed writing (500 words per evening at the best of times when I do have time and Fantasy-kun is working full-speed) it kind of sucks when I can't present you lot with a decent chapter even just every two weeks. I really love this idea and I don't want to screw it up because I'd be seriously disappointed in myself, so yeah, keeping up 5k plus that isn't a blob of grammarless idiocy and hopefully makes some sense, it takes some time. Sorry!

Anyways, here's another chapter and as promised, it's more than five thousand words! Woo hoo :D I'm really proud of myself! Although, I'd like to know if you guys liked the way I introduced Tsuna to his flames. I know it must've been quite confusing and leaving many new questions open but I think the next chapters will slowly explain things. No point in rushing :3

Any suggestions? Corrections? Ideas? Found any grammar mistakes? Is the way the phrases flow too slow? Too fast? Would you like more detailed descriptions? More epicness? Both? I'm not demanding, I'd just like to know to make it better so you'd enjoy reading it more ^^

So, I'd also like to know your opinion on this idea... Would you like it if I made Tsuna grow gradually badass down the road? I mean, not always, 'cause he still has his normal 'human' side of life, and not the Dark!Tsuna blood lust or the Overlord!Tsuna evilness or, heaven forbid, the Defeat-enemies-in-a-snap-of-a-finger!Tsuna Marty Stueness. No, nothing of that kind. I just wanted to take a normal, (mostly) in character Tsuna - I mean, more of the serious Tsuna and less of the pointless screeching - and see what happens if he grows up with this 'other world' as a constant part of his life. You know all the fics where Tsuna grows up knowing about the mafia and stuff and how he acts all Dame-and-isn't but he's kind of still the Tsuna we all know and love? He'd still be the mentally freaking out at some outrageous things (hey, who wouldn't) but just because he's used to it, he'd be relatively calm on the outside? Ah, sorry for such incoherent ramblings - I'm just excited to know if you'd like a normal-when-times-are-normal!Tsuna and a badass-when-things-call-for-it!Tsuna. Regardless, there's a lot coming for him :3 I will be making sure of that, hehehe... *wiggling eye brows*

Okay, ending the long author's note now^^

Love, peace and cookies

River Melody

P.S. COOKIES WILL CONQUER THE PLANET ONE DAY! *throws cookies around* MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...Oh drat, I'm hyper, am I?

P.P.S. Could I see the reviews hitting '105' for another chapter?^^


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